Nicki Minaj scores back-to-back number one debuts on Hot Rap Songs Chart with ... trends now
On the heels of the success with her hit single Super Freaky Girl, Nicki Minaj has powered her way to the top of the charts with her first solo single of 2023, Red Ruby Da Sleeze.
The new release, which is the second single for her upcoming studio album NM5, gives the rapper and singer back-to-back number one debuts on the Hot Rap Songs chart, according to Billboard.
In the lead up to Red Ruby Da Sleeze on March 3, the pop star dropped promotional snippets on her social media platforms, much like she did with Super Freaky Girl.
The song is another sample-buoyed banger that features elements of Lumidee‘s 2003 hit Never Leave You (Uh Oh), the debut single off her first album Almost Famous.
Chart topper: Nicki Minaj, 40, has back-to-back number one debuts on the Hot Rap Songs chart following the success of Red Ruby Da Sleeze, according to Billboard
Coming: Tentatively set to drop in 2023, so far there's no official word on when her album NM5 will be released
Ruby's soar to the top of the chart was powered primarily by pure sales of about 41,000 in the first week, which is the most any hip-hop song has scored this year.
Amongst all of the music genres, it ranks second to only the Miley Cyrus song Flowers, which scored a whopping 70,000 copies.
Super Freaky Girl, which samples late funk rocker Rick James's 1981 hit song Super Freak, dropped last August as the first single in promotion of NM5 and quickly became Minaj's third U.S. number one and her first unaccompanied number one.
It ended up topping the Hot Rap Songs chart for 11 weeks in 2022, en route to becoming one of the biggest songs of the year.
It also made music history by becoming the first solo female rapper with a number one Hot 100 debut since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing) in 1997.
After its initial release of Ruby, MInaj decided to do an extended version
