Cynthia Erivo

Kendrick Lamar Continues His Dominant 2024 Run As ‘GNX’ Debuts At No. 1 On The ‘Billboard’ 200 Chart

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Kendrick Lamar 2024
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The end of the year is usually relatively slow when it comes to new music drops, but Kendrick Lamar spiced up the final weeks of 2024 with one of the year’s biggest releases: GNX. Aside from being a cap on Lamar’s culture-dominating year, it’s yet another chart success for the rapper: On the new Billboard 200 chart dated December 7, GNX debuts at No. 1.

The album is now Lamar’s fifth total and consecutive chart-topping album. GNX earned 319,000 equivalent album units in the US during the week ending November 28, which is the sixth-biggest debut week of 2024. It also had the third-biggest streaming week for any album this year, with 379.72 million on-demand official streams for the project’s songs.

GNX follows Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (in 2022), Damn (2017), Untitled Unmastered (2016), and To Pimp A Butterfly (2015) as No. 1 albums for Lamar.

Debuting right behind GNX at No. 2 is the Ariana Grande– and Cynthia Erivo-led Wicked soundtrack. This is the biggest-ever debut for the soundtrack of a film adaptation of a stage musical. The last time such a soundtrack debuted in the top five was back in 2003, when Chicago debuted at No. 4 (before peaking at No. 2 the next week). The most recent stage-to-screen musical soundtrack to be in the top two, debut week or not, was Les Miserables, which was No. 1 for a week in 2013.

Cynthia Erivo’s Soulful New Single Remembers ‘The Good’ In A Dying Relationship

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English actress, singer, and songwriter Cynthia Erivo is getting set to release her debut studio album, Ch. 1 Vs. 1, later this summer, and to set the tone, she’s shared the soulful lead single, “The Good,” along with a heartwrenching music video. The video depicts the ups and downs of a relationship between two women as the potential EGOT winner sings about only wanting to remember the good in the aftermath of a relationship’s dissolution.

In a press release announcing the upcoming album, Erivo explained the title and concept behind the project. “In storytelling, chapter one and verse one is the way you always begin, and because I believe I’m a storyteller, that’s what I wanted to do with my music,” she said. “That’s what this is about, just starting [and revealing] the human parts of me that you don’t often get to see.”

As odd as it may seem to view the upcoming project as a debut, much less one telling a story about someone who’s been a star of stage and film for the last decade (again, she’s only an Oscar away from the EGOT, and to be honest, she’s only like one role away from that), as we’ve only gotten to know her through her roles (which have included Harriet Tubman and Aretha Franklin), there’s a lot to be said for an introductory album as she pursues a music career to rival her acting one.

Watch Cynthia Erivo’s “The Good” video above. Pre-save Ch. 1 Vs. 1, out 9/17 on Verve, here.