Lover Girl debuts at 38, ends hip-hop drought on Hot 100

Megan Thee Stallion returned rap to the U.S. pop singles top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of November 8, when her new single Lover Girl debuted at number 38, ending a two week absence of hip hop from the chart’s upper tier — the first consecutive top 40 drought for the genre since February 1990. The song registered 8.5 million official U.S. streams, drew a radio audience of about 1.5 million and sold roughly 5,000 copies in the tracking week ending October 30, according to data from Luminate.

Lover Girl is the Houston rapper’s 21st top 40 entry on the Hot 100 and follows a year that included her solo chart-topper Hiss and earlier collaborations that reached number one. The single was released on October 24 and samples R&B group Total’s Kissin’ You. Its arrival into the top 40 interrupted a brief period in which no rap or hip hop titles occupied that region of the chart.

The recent absence was driven in part by an update to the Hot 100’s recurrent policy that removes longrunning tracks once they fall below specified chart positions after a set duration. That change prompted the removal of Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s collaborative single Luther from the top 40 after an...