OnlyFans is reporting record profits for 2021 and revealing that its creators pulled in almost $4 billion, which is a heck of a lot of money. The platform, which has been making headlines recently thanks to Denise Richards and her daughter, posted its financial results, and it seemingly backs reports that its top creators are making huge bank. Particularly, Blac Chyna, who reportedly locked down the number one spot for the year while facing some pretty stiff competition.
In 2021, model and TV personality Blac Chyna was the top-earning creator on OnlyFans, pulling in an estimated $20 million per month, according to research service Statista. Bella Thorne took the No. 2 spot with an estimated $11 million per month followed by rapper Cardi B with $9.34 million per month, per Statista.
If we’re doing the math right and these numbers are actually correct, Blac Chyna not only pulls in twice what superstar artist Cardi B makes, but the former Kardashian family member makes $240 million a year just from OnlyFans? Whoa, if true.
According to the financial statement, OnlyFans saw a 160% revenue growth during 2021, which could’ve easily gone out the window after the platform made a highly controversial decision to ban adult content on the site. It was a move that came out of nowhere considering, well, that was the entire point of OnlyFans. However, after backlash from users and the adult entertainment community forced OnlyFans to reverse its decision within a week, and clearly, it’s been humming along ever since.
Particularly for Blac Chyna, who we seriously can’t believe is doing way more numbers than Cardi B. The internet is wild, folks.
On The Up is back after a short break, once again highlighting five new artists you should be listening to this month. September’s picks jump from a surging Bay Area R&B singer to a new face on the Brazilian music scene signed to Stones Throw Records. Fans of Big Thief will be hyped on one of our picks, while a dizzying LA rapper and rising Aussie psych-pop group round out September’s group. Check ’em out and listen in below.
Zyah Belle
We’ve been featuring some of Zyah Belle’s tracks in our Best New R&B column dating back to when the Bay Area singer signed with Guin Records last year and dropped the silky Who’s Listening Anyway EP. She hasn’t let up in 2022 and has her album, Yam Grier, set to drop on September 9th. “Not The One” beams with some serious mystique from her and LA rapper Tempest, while “DND” is armed with a sultry, electro-R&B bounce. Named after ’70s blaxploitation film queen Pam Grier (who also starred in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 cult classic, Jackie Brown), Yam Grier sees Belle channeling that alpha woman energy Grier made famous on the silver screen and she says the album is, “The embodiment of a woman who has finally come into her own, unapologetically.”
Gabriel Da Rosa
When Brazil’s Gabriel Da Rosa arrived in LA eight years ago, he was armed with a guitar, a backpack, a dog, and a rock and roll dream. Where he’s at today looks very different — well, at least musically. The latest signee to the always-eclectic Stones Throw Records label, Da Rosa is making music in the mold of the Brazilian samba, bossa nova, and tropicalia greats. On his debut single, “Jasmim Parte 1,” that uncanny breezy guitar, pairs with lush Wurly keys, bossa horns and a gorgeous Brazilian sidewalk flute. In the song’s video, the avid vinyl collector flips through records from legends like Joao Gilberto, Novos Baianos, Gal Costa, etc… and if any of those names mean something to you, you’re gonna want to press play on “Jardim Parte 1” stat.
Tenci
We’ve got a soft spot for so many artists on Austin’s indie workhorse label Keeled Scales. Acts like Sun June, Why Bonnie, and Katy Kirby are helping shape the label’s roster and now Chicago’s Tenci are pushing towards their second album on the imprint. A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing is due out on November 4th, and lead single “Two Cups” showcases singer/bandleader Jess Shoman’s imaginative arrangements and inviting vocals that harken to Adrianne Lenker’s distinct range.
Rhys Langston
LA’s off-kilter art rap scene has always rested on the foundations of MCs dropping stream-of-consciousness raps that in actuality, aren’t that at all. For these cats are just delightful, highly-intelligent weirdos with a microphone and a lot to say. Rhys Langston is one of these artists and the POW Records-signee has a sharp-tongued, verbose approach that comes across as trippily as smashing melons on the shores of the La Brea tar pits. The Sufjan Stevens-esque-titled “I Will Stop At Nothing (I A Magnetized And I Move!)” is a spiraling display of wordsmithery, as Langston spits in a controlled fury, “And my voice box full of stuffing, dressings, fixings / MacGuyver’d, Epoxy, aluminum wire. Ready-made, sculpted tableau portmanteau…” His album Grapefruit Radio is set to drop on September 14th and also features Jersey’s Fatboi Sharif, LA mainstay The Koreatown Oddity, and others.
Babe Rainbow
In a most unusual, but wholly welcome collaboration last year, Jaden Smith guested on the sunny, shore-break airiness of Babe Rainbow’s “Your Imagination.” It was another high-profile co-sign for the Aussie psych-y surf pop band following a release on Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Records and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie producing their debut. Now the group are pushing towards a new album as tunes like “Smash The Machine” have grown increasingly more psychedelic. It’s no surprise that their upcoming tour begins on Sept 30th at SoCal’s buzzy, psych rock-focused (but still eclectic) Desert Daze festival alongside Tame Impala, King Gizzard, and Sky Ferreira.
Back in May, Danny Brown got into the podcast game by launching The Danny Brown Show (through YMH Studios, owned by married comedians Tom Segura and Christina P.) He’s put out new episodes weekly since then and on the latest one from August 30, he weighed in on AI rapper FN Meka. To put it simply, he’s not a fan.
Addressing the initial upset some hip-hop fans had about Meka signing with Capitol Records, Brown said, “Only thing I’m mad about is he’s an AI-generated rapper but they got him saying ‘n****.’ Now that’s racist, ’cause we know ain’t no n****s programming no f*ckin AI-generated rappers. He’s saying ‘n****’ and sh*t and that’s the weird sh*t because I mean, he’s an AI-generated program: He should be smart enough to say some other words. He should have a vast vocabulary.”
He continued, “F*ck FN Meka, I’m beefing with him. Tell him to drop the diss song on me, Danny Brown want all the smoke.”
Brown also brought up another point about competition in hip-hop: “So if he comes up and this does real good, and this is successful, […] other record labels are going to be like, ‘F*ck it, I gotta get me an AI-generated rapper.’ I mean, bad enough we competing with each other. You know how many rappers it is in the world? It’s too many of us! It’s definitely too many f*cking rappers. […] Now you’re telling me we gotta compete with computers, too? F*ck this sh*t, man!”
That Meka diss track is likely not coming any time soon, as the rapper was quickly dropped from its label following the backlash.
Check out Brown discussing FN Meka above or watch the full Danny Brown Show episode below.
When Kendrick Lamar dropped his new album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, one track, in particular, got fans’ attention straight out of the gate. Thanks to its unnervingly accurate depiction of a contentious domestic dispute, “We Cry Together” became a polarizing fan favorite — if I can use that term loosely. While some were uncomfortable with Kendrick’s and guest star Taylour Paige’s performances, others (including one very enthused security guard) praised them for bringing their actual experiences to life. Now, Kendrick’s gone one step further, releasing the accompanying short film for the first time since its June premiere in Los Angeles.
The short film is pretty much exactly what the song portrays: A couple in the midst of an explosive argument, trading acidic insults and disquieting threats. Kenny’s in character as a blue collar worker and the whole episode mostly takes place in the cramped confines of the couple’s living room as the toxic discussion unfolds. It ends, as the song does, with a messy, Insecure-esque sex scene that is, frankly, not safe for work at all. In a nice twist, though, the camera pulls back to reveal that the living room is indeed a movie set, giving viewers the opportunity to decompress as they realize it’s all just a production.
You can watch the “We Cry Together” music video/short film above.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
A few weeks before he announced his third studio album The Forever Story, JID tweeted an intriguing statement about his burgeoning popularity. “None of my rap co-workers be tryna rap wit me dawg,” he wrote. “I think y’all n****z is scared, I’m talking to bigger rap artists.” The Forever Story presents a wealth of compelling evidence to support that theory.
In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that The Forever Story is the – as in singular, as in only – best-rapped album to come out in 2022. Present your arguments for whomever and however you see fit, but the Atlanta rapper’s project has at least one song to give it an edge over its qualified competitors.
I’ll go out even further on this narrow branch and say that JID belongs in the top five contemporary rappers discussion, and has since 2018 when he dropped DiCaprio 2. Since then, he’s followed up with the folksy Spilligion alongside his Spillage Village cohorts, utterly stolen the show on two Dreamville compilations, and made me enjoy an Imagine Dragons song.
So, why hasn’t JID gotten the recognition he deserves? There are a couple of reasons that spring to mind. First of all, JID has the unfortunate timing to have made his debut in a time slightly removed from the era where super technically skilled rappers could gain a lot of traction in a relatively short amount of time.
Think about the “blog era,” which spawned such lyrically-gifted standouts as Big KRIT, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, or Wale. Being a rapper’s rapper was prized at such a time because hip-hop goes through different cycles. There’d been a long lull in the priority of bars-first traditionalism, and the massive cultural shift toward blogs and weekly freestyles allowed artists like these to grab a lot of the spotlight.
That era came to an end in the middle of the last decade, as Chance The Rapper, who is probably the last of the blog era super rappers to get on, won his Grammy for Coloring Book. Then the Soundcloud era began, and colorful characters like Travis Scott who prized “vibes” over rhymes began to take center stage. JID is decidedly not one of those, but because he made his debut during that era, fans of hyper lyrical rappers likely wrote him off as just another punk kid.
Another reason might come directly from JID’s own words. One of the biggest drivers of any new – or even established – artist’s rise to stardom is the willingness of their peers to collaborate. Consider Lil Durk, who actually appears on The Forever Story on the song “Bruddenem.” He toiled on the underground scene for nearly a decade until Drake featured him on the 2020 standout “Laugh Now Cry Later.”
Now, Durk’s considered an A-lister, a hotly-demanded feature artist in his own right with numerous No. 1 albums under his belt. No one has yet done this for JID, aside from J. Cole, who hasn’t featured the younger MC on his own albums despite working with him on the Dreamville collabs on songs like “Stick.” Even if he did, JID’s an artist on his label, and would probably be subject to the “homie write-off” effect that plagued underlings in groups like Disturbing Tha Peace, St. Lunatics, and Roc-A-Fella. There’s only so much star power to go around, and artists can get overshadowed by their more famous labelmates.
Other rappers might really be nervous to feature JID, whose sheer force of persona could potentially overpower or overwhelm the sort of mainstream-friendly tracks it would take to expose him to a wider audience more used to party anthems than aggressive battle rap tracks.
Meanwhile, any rapper who considers themselves more lyrics-forward runs the risk of being “Renegaded” – the fan term for being outrapped on your own track, as applied to Jay-Z’s 2001 song “Renegade” from The Blueprint. When Eminem’s intricate, wordy verses seemed to tower over Jay’s more laid-back, heady ones, Nas ridiculed Jay, “Eminem killed you on your own sh*t.” Nobody wants the potential embarrassment.
The last reason JID might not radiate star power like some of his peers do is that he’s so down-to-earth and humble. He’s quiet, not prone to making outrageous pronouncements or having emotional outbursts on Twitter. In the few engagements we’ve had on that platform, he always seemed more curious and willing to learn than he did defensive, boisterous, or argumentative.
Hip-hop loves a villain – or at least an antihero – someone who talks loud and seems unafraid to make enemies. Acts like Kanye West or 50 Cent seem larger than life. Hell, even Tekashi 69, whose antics were decried by hip-hop fans, remains a subject of fascination. The soft-spoken JID just isn’t going to be as sensational a character for them to latch onto.
But his rhymes are sensational. Whether he’s talking tough on “Dance Now” and “Surround Sound” or telling nostalgic stories on “Crack Sandwich,” waxing philosophical on “Better Days” or getting confessional on “Sistanem,” he shows a grasp of the artform that almost nobody in the rap business today even comes close to. So, while he might not be as universally recognized as I believe he should be, The Forever Story might well change that.
He’s got the big-name co-signs from guest stars like 21 Savage and Lil Wayne. He’s starting to talk his sh*t on Twitter. He’s got enjoyable slow burners like “Can’t Make U Change” with Ari Lennox and veteran blessings from Yasiin Bey on “Stars.” All that’s left is for listeners to finally, well, listen. The Forever Story will reward them for doing so. In turn, all they need to do is hail JID as the best rapper of his generation.
The Forever Story is out now via Dreamville/Interscope. Get it here.
A Milli Vanilli biopic is on its way. Centering on the scandal involving dancers Pilatus and Morvan who pretended to be behind the 1980s hit “Girl You Know It’s True,” the movie is long-awaited and sure to touch on the intricacies of the music industry. Today, more about the movie was revealed, including the casting.
According to Deadline, Tijan Njie and Elan Ben Ali will play Fabrice Morvan and the late Rob Pilatus. Matthias Schweighöfer from Army of Thieves will play the German music producer Frank Farian. Graham Rogers, known for his role in Love and Mercy, will star as Milli Vanilli’s assistant Todd Headlee. Troy: Fall of a City‘s Bella Dayne will be Milli, Farian’s right-hand woman, who is the inspiration for the group’s name.
The film will be produced by Kevin Liles, the CEO of music company 300 Entertainment who also co-wrote the original version of “Girl You Know It’s True” with Baltimore DJ crew Numarx, and co-produced by Verhoeven, Farian, and Stefan Gärtner. Associate producers include Jasmin Davis, who is the daughter of the late John Davis, as well as Brad Howell who were the true voices of Milli Vanilli. It is produced by Leonine Studios and Wiedemann & Berg Film, and it’s in co-production with Sentana Film, SevenPictures, and Mediawan.
Kanye West may have dialed down his Instagram petty to only celebrating his perceived enemies’ supposed failures, but he’s packing double the vitriol in those posts, often lashing out at two in the same post. His preferred secondary target is Kid Cudi, who he zings in the subheadlines of the bizarre fake New York Times covers he has been posting to strike out at rivals such as Pete Davidson and Adidas CEO Kasper Rørsted.
In his latest post, he declares the latter “also dead at 60,” calling back to his post about Pete. In the subheadline, though, he throws two jabs at once, writing, “I know what you’re thinking… who is Kasper? but even less importantly who is Kid Cudi?”
Instagram
Actually, I was thinking how badly Kanye needs a copy editor, but I digress. In Kanye’s previous dig at his former artist, Kanye sniped at him for cutting his Rolling Loud set short after fans threw objects onstage. “Kid Cudi meant to play funeral but fearful of bottle throwers,” he trolled. His latest shot is likely a response he’s been sitting on since Cudi told Esquire he has no plans to reconcile with his former mentor.
“With all due respect, I’m not Drake,” he said. “It’s gonna take a motherf*cking miracle for me and that man to be friends again. I don’t see it happening. He gon’ have to become a monk.” Cudi later clarified that he meant no disrespect to Drake, with whom he previously did have a feud but they’ve since made up.
Kanye’s beef with Rørsted, meanwhile, stems from his belief that the Adidas chief is responsible for the company seemingly distancing itself from Kanye while continuing to use his designs, which is not in any way Kanye’s own fault for acting like a colicky toddler for the past year or so. Rørsted is stepping down as CEO sometime this year. May whoever succeeds him finally drop Kanye so he can enjoy his creative freedom, or whatever.
Keeping track of all the new albums coming out in a given month is a big job, but we’re up for it: Below is a comprehensive list of the major releases you can look forward to in September. If you’re not trying to potentially miss out on anything, it might be a good idea to keep reading.
Friday, September 2
The Amazons — How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? (Blood Records)
Ayka — Eleven EP (Glassnote Records)
Armani Caesar — The Liz 2 (Griselda Records)
Bitchin Bajas — Bajascillators (Drag City)
Creature Canyon — Remarks (Gnu Roam/Kartel Music)
Coma Girls — No Umbrella For Star Flower (Baby Robot Records)
George FitzGerald — Stellar Drifting (Domino)
The Front Bottoms — Theresa EP (Wuacasokle/Fueled By Ramen)
The Hu — Rumble Of Thunder (Better Noise Music)
Jon Pardi — Mr. Saturday Night (Capitol Nashville)
Lean Year — Sides (Western Vinyl)
Lee “Scratch” Perry — King Scratch (Musical Masterpieces from The Upsetter Ark-ive) (Trojan Records)
Megadeth — The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! (Tradecraft)
Nina Nesbitt — Älskar (Cooking Vinyl)
Pale Blue Eyes — Souvenirs (Full Time Hobby)
Parker Gispert — Golden Years (Normaltown/New West Records)
Rina Sawayama — Hold The Girl (Dirty Hit)
S. Raekwon — I Like It When You Smile EP (Lex Records)
Stereolab — Pulse Of The Early Brain [Switched On Volume 5] (Warp/Duophonic UHF Disks)
Tom Chaplin — Midpoint (BMG)
Two Door Cinema Club — Keep On Smiling ([PIAS])
Unloved — The Pink Album (Heavenly Records / [PIAS])
Warmduscher — At The Hotspot EP (Bella Union)
The Wonder Years — The Hum Goes On Forever (Hopeless Records)
Yungblud — Yungblud (Locomotion/Geffen)
Friday, September 9
The Afghan Whigs — How Do You Burn? (Royal Cream/BMG)
Ari Lennox — Age/Sex/Location (Dreamville/Interscope Records)
Beacon — Along The Lethe (Apparent Movement)
Built To Spill — When The Wind Forgets Your Name (Sub Pop)
Breland — Cross Country (Bad Realm Records/Atlantic Records/Warner Music Nashville)
Charles Stepney — Step On Step (International Anthem Recording Co.)
Charley Crockett — The Man From Waco (Son of Davy/Thirty Tigers)
Daniel Romano’s Outfit — La Luna (You’ve Changed Records)
The Deer — The Beautiful Undead (22 Sound Records)
Flogging Molly — Anthem (Rise Records))
Foreign Air — Hello Sunshine (Lex Records)
George Riley — Running In Waves (PLZ Make It Ruins)
Highly Suspect — The Midnight Demon Club (Roadrunner/FRSKT)
Holy Fawn — Dimensional Bleed (Wax Bodega)
Jackson Wang — Magic Man (Team Wang)
Jockstrap — I Love You Jennifer B (Rough Trade Records)
John Legend — Legend (Columbia)
JR Slayer — Not Rotten EP (Memory Music)
Kane Brown — Different Man (Sony Music Nashville)
Lake Street Dive — Fun Machine: The Sequel EP (Fantasy Records)
Living Hour — Someday Is Today (Kanine)
Marlon Williams — My Boy (Dead Oceans)
Mike Adams — Graphic Blandishment (Joyful Noise Recordings)
Miya Folick — 2007 EP (Nettwerk)
Oliver Sim — Hideous Bastard (Young)
Ozzy Osbourne — Patient Number 9 (Epic Records)
The Paranoyds — Talk Talk Talk (Third Man Records)
Parkway Drive — Darker Still (Epitaph Records)
Preoccupations — Arrangements (self-released)
Reuben And The Dark — In Lieu Of Light (Arts & Crafts)
Robbie Williams — XXV (Columbia)
Sampa The Great — As Above, So Below (Loma Vista)
San Fermin — Your Ghost EP (Better Company Records)
Santigold — Spirituals (Little Jerk Records)
Sarah Davachi — Two Sisters (Bleep)
Son Little — Like Neptune (ANTI-)
Sudan Archives — Natural Brown Prom Queen (Stones Throw)
Suzi Analogue — Infinite Zonez (Disciples)
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown — Shake The Roots (Rattle Shake Records)
Wyldest — Feed The Flowers Nightmares (Hand In Hive)
Friday, September 16
Bazzi — Infinite Dream (Atlantic)
Behemoth — Opvs Contra Natvram (Nuclear Blast)
The Beths — Expert In A Dying Field (Carpark Records)
The Black Angels — Wilderness Of Mirrors (Partisan Records)
Blackpink — Born Pink (YG Entertainment/Interscope Records)
Carina — Spaceout! EP (Mini Mind Museum)
Carl Cox — Electronic Generations (BMG)
Clutch — Sunrise On Slaughter Beach (Weathermaker Music)
Con Brio — Seasons EP (self-released)
Crack Cloud — Tough Baby (Meat Machine)
Daniele Luppi And Greg Gonzalez — Charm Of Pleasure (Mute)
Danielle Ponder — Some Of Us Are Brave (Future Classic)
Daya — In Between Dreams EP (Sandlot Records)
Death Cab For Cutie — Roman Candles (Atlantic)
Dear Boy — Forever Sometimes (Mono Mundo/Thirty Tigers)
Disco Doom — Mt. Surreal (Exploding in Sound)
Djo — Decide (AWAL)
Ela Minus & DJ Python — Corazón EP (Smugglers Way)
Fletcher — Girl Of My Dreams (Capitol Records)
Gloria de Oliveira And Dean Hurley — Oceans Of Time (Sacred Bones)
Jay-Z might very well be the greatest rapper of all time, but he is also a lightning rod for controversy. Fans love his rhymes but often find fault with his business practices, questioning some of his moves and his “Black excellence” stance that they say doesn’t really help Black people. Whether or not that’s true, though, Jay’s own recent comments about their critiques suggest he doesn’t really understand why they’re so upset — or that they haven’t really been able to explain themselves as well as you’d hope.
During a live Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by Rob Markman (who has been all over the rollout for DJ Khaled’s God Did and the title track that has revitalized all this GOAT talk), Jay-Z addressed those critics, saying it feels like they’re just trying to undermine his accomplishments. “We not gone stop,” he said. “Hip-hop is young. It’s still growing. We not falling for that tricknology the public puts out there now. Before it was the American Dream: ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can make it in America.’ All these lies that America told us our whole life and then when we start getting it, they try to lock us out of it. They start inventing words like ‘capitalist.’ We’ve been called ‘n****rs’ and ‘monkeys’ and sh*t. I don’t care what words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come with stronger words.”
While he makes some salient points about the inherent unfairness of the American political and economic systems, his comparison of “capitalist” to racist slurs and suggestion that it was invented to criticize Black success stories specifically has rankled some chains on the timeline. To be fair, it sounds like he hasn’t quite figured out that he is one; Jay’s made far more money with ventures like Live Nation, Square, and Tidal than he ever could have from rap. It’s sort of inherent to the whole “I’m a business, man” philosophy that he’s espoused his entire life.
And for someone who name-checks Fred Hampton quite a lot, he seems not to realize that Hampton was a staunch anti-capitalist — something I’ve written about on Uproxx before. Their perspectives seem to be at odds, but Jay’s comments suggest he hasn’t actually engaged with the perspective of the activist he keeps invoking. Fans on Twitter were quick to point this out, further highlighting Jay’s status as a focal point of debate. From bringing up Noname’s semi-regular criticism of Jay’s aesthetic activism to quoting Hampton and Malcolm X, the disappointed-sounding responses offered a variety of rebuttals to his assertions — although there were a few defenders, as well. They even joked about the “lunch with Jay or $500K” meme.
To be fair, Jay very likely believes that his wealth is revolutionary. After all, if the system is designed to keep you poor, what better way to defy that system than to do the very thing it’s designed to keep you away from? I’m sure in Jay’s mind, the ultimate form of resistance to such as system is to succeed in spite of it. But that still doesn’t stop the system from functioning — which it certainly has been, as the past few years have made abundantly clear. Either way, he’s stoked a discussion that has been ongoing and will likely continue until there’s some real change in an American society that gets more unequal all the time. Check out some of those responses as well as the full discussion below.
These people will quote real Black revolutionaries in their music, only to be the very people they warned us about https://t.co/vfJcJpRQvF
Jay Z is the most self aware wolf. He wore a Che Guevara shirt on his Unplugged Album and thinks they JUST invented the word capitalist? Are you dumb @sc?
We are saying “Eat The Rich” because we are finally aware that the rich and capitalism are the problem.
I Think What He’s Saying Is Absolutely Correct Here . He’s Not Telling YOU To Pull Yourself Up By The Bootstraps, He’s Saying When HE Did It Ppl Started Changing The Rules And Moving The Goalposts To Make His Success Nefarious. https://t.co/IRfHnHX4pD
the level of cognitive dissonance it requires to at one point juxtapose yourself to the likes of malcolm x and fred hampton—who had historically rigorous critiques of the essence of neocolonialism and black capitalis(m/ts)—only to land at “capitalist = n!gger,” is impressive lmao https://t.co/wtZk4klFc0
Idc about the backlash and outrage y’all have over this cuz he is right to a certain extent. Y’all reserve this anti-capitalism campaigns for rich black people but you never serve the same energy cross-sectionally despite the rich white artists having it way easier smh https://t.co/8lCXOVjAjV
Black revolutionaries been talking about capitalism before you was born. Do yourself a favor and read up. This is an especially egregious thing to say given today is the last day of Black August https://t.co/6lYbwsgbA1pic.twitter.com/B2LYicZmL8
— power doesn’t flow from the sleeve of a dashiki (@AxumSelassie) September 1, 2022
Every year, music fans crave the knowledge: What is the “song of the summer?” A lot of discussions about that sort of thing tend to be based on opinion, but now Spotify has some hard data to add to the conversation.
The methodology was simple: Check what songs got the most streams on Spotify from May 29 to August 29. That has been done, and if you’re looking at just the United States, Kate Bush’sStranger Things-boosted hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” is No. 1, with Harry Styles’ “As It Was” behind at No. 2. If you check the global list, though, those positions are swapped, with Styles on top and Bush earning silver.
Perhaps the most dominant artist of both lists, though, is Bad Bunny: He has seven songs in the top 20 on the global list and six on the US rank. Besides Styles, Bush, and Bad Bunny, the only artist to make the top 10 of both lists is Joji with “Glimpse Of Us” (No. 5 globally, No. 4 in the US).
Check out the full lists below.
Spotify’s most-streamed songs of summer globally
1. Harry Styles — “As It Was”
2. Kate Bush — “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”
3. Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone — “Me Porto Bonito”
4. Bad Bunny — “Tití Me Preguntó”
5. Joji — “Glimpse Of Us”
6. Bad Bunny and Bomba Estéreo — “Ojitos Lindos”
7. Bizarrap and Quevedo — “Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52”
8. Bad Bunny — “Efecto”
9. Bad Bunny — “Moscow Mule”
10. Glass Animals — “Heat Waves”
11. Karol G — “Provenza”
12. Lizzo — “About Damn Time”
13. Harry Styles — “Late Night Talking”
14. Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro — “Party”
15. Shakira and Rauw Alejandro — “Te Felicito”
16. The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber — “Stay”
17. Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez — “Tarot”
18. Camila Cabello — “Bam Bam” Feat. Ed Sheeran
19. Elton John and Dua Lipa — “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)”
20. OneRepublic — “I Ain’t Worried”
Spotify’s most-streamed songs of summer in the US
1. Kate Bush — “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”
2. Harry Styles — “As It Was”
3. Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone — “Me Porto Bonito”
4. Joji — “Glimpse Of Us”
5. Bad Bunny — “Tití Me Preguntó”
6. Steve Lacy — “Bad Habit”
7. Drake — “Jimmy Cooks” Feat. 21 Savage
8. Post Malone and Doja Cat — “I Like You (A Happier Song)”
9. Harry Styles — “Late Night Talking”
10. Lizzo — “About Damn Time”
11. Jack Harlow — “First Class”
12. Future — “Wait For U” Feat. Drake and Tems
13. Glass Animals — “Heat Waves”
14. Doja Cat — “Vegas”
15. Bad Bunny — “Efecto”
16. Bad Bunny — “Moscow Mule”
17. Bad Bunny and Bomba Estéreo — “Ojitos Lindos”
18. Morgan Wallen — “You Proof”
19. OneRepublic — “I Ain’t Worried”
20. Bad Bunny and Rauw Alejandro — “Party”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
(@RobMarkman) 
. He’s Not Telling YOU To Pull Yourself Up By The Bootstraps, He’s Saying When HE Did It Ppl Started Changing The Rules And Moving The Goalposts To Make His Success Nefarious. 