Khalid & Lil Nas X Top Nielsen Music’s Mid-Year 2019 R&B/Hip-Hop Charts

Khalid’s Free Spirit stands as the most popular R&B/hip-hop album of 2019, so far, while Lil Nas X’s inescapable “Old Town Road” single was a blockbuster for the genre in terms of both streaming and song sales, according to Nielsen Music.

During the tracking period of Jan. 4 through June 20, 2019, Free Spirit earned 929,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. and places at No. 1 on Nielsen Music’s mid-year top 10 R&B/hip-hop albums chart (see below). The R&B album also rules as the highest-selling R&B/hip-hop album of 2019 thus far, with 148,000 copies sold.

Equivalent album units are comprised of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported on-demand audio streams generated by songs on an album, or 1,250 paid subscription on-demand audio streams generated by songs on an album. (For the sake of clarity, equivalent album units do not include listening to music on broadcast radio or digital radio broadcasts.)

Free Spirit debuted at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200 chart (ranking the most popular albums across all genres of music) as well as the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums tally.

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The rest of the top 10 on Nielsen’s mid-year R&B/hip-hop albums is comprised of rap and hip-hop sets. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s Hoodie SZN ranks at No. 2 (810,000 units), followed by Post Malone’s beerbongs & bentleys (756,000) and Drake’s Scorpion (718,000) at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively.

Overall equivalent album units for the R&B/hip-hop genre totaled 79.7 million through June 20. That represents 26.1% of the total volume across all genres (305.2 million). Further, the R&B/hip-hop genre represented 29.6% of all on-demand song streams thus far in 2019.

Lil Nas X’s monster hit “Old Town Road” is the most streamed and biggest-selling R&B/hip-hop song so far in 2019. It tallied 1.34 billion on-demand streams (audio and video combined), making it the only song — across all genres — to earn more than 1 billion streams year-to-date. The track also stands as the highest-selling digital R&B/hip-hop song of the year, with 958,000 downloads sold. (All versions of “Old Town Road,” including the popular remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, are combined for charting and tracking purposes.)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Based on Overall Equivalent Album Units*)

1. Khalid, Free Spirit (929,000)
2. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, Hoodie SZN (810,000)
3. Post Malone, beerbongs & bentleys (756,000)
4. Drake, Scorpion (718,000)
5. Juice WRLD, Death Race for Love (675,000)
6. Travis Scott, Astroworld (656,000)
7. Meek Mill, Championships (645,000)
8. Soundtrack, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (641,000)
9. 21 Savage, I Am > I Was (594,000)
10. Juice WRLD, Goodbye & Good Riddance (507,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
1. Khalid, Free Spirit (148,000)
2. Tyler, The Creator, Igor (83,000)
3. Soundtrack, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (79,000)
4. Bob Marley & The Wailers, Legend (65,000)
5. Nipsey Hussle, Victory Lap (62,000)
6. Anderson .Paak, Ventura (57,000)
7. Juice WRLD, Death Race for Love (56,000)
8. Post Malone, beerbongs & bentleys (55,000)
9. DJ Khaled, Father of Asahd (52,000)
10. Eminem, Kamikaze (50,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Digital R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (958,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (488,000)
3. Post Malone, “Wow.” (381,000)
4. Cardi B & Bruno Mars, “Please Me” (206,000)
5. Khalid, “Better” (190,000)
6. Khalid, “Talk” (176,000)
7. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (167,000)
8. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (167,000)
9. Meek Mill featuring Drake, “Going Bad” (128,000)
10. Cardi B, “Money” (124,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand R&B/Hip-Hop Song Streams (Audio and Video Combined)

1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (1,337,995,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (850,194,000)
3. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (623,498,000)
4. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (582,748,000)
5. Post Malone, “Wow.” (582,633,000)
6. Blueface, “Thotiana” (588,277,000)
7. YNW Melly, “Murder On My Mind” (498,806,000)
8. Meek Mill featuring Drake, “Going Bad” (484,876,000)
9. Lil Baby & Gunna, “Drip Too Hard” (428,521,000)
10. Calboy, “Envy Me” (426,119,000)

2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand R&B/Hip-Hop Audio Streams

1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (596,113,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (458,470,000)
3. Post Malone, “Wow.” (416,231,000)
4. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (395,872,000)
5. Meek Mill featuring Drake, “Going Bad” (337,025,000)
6. YNW Melly, “Murder On My Mind” (287,219,000)
7. Lil Baby & Gunna, “Drip Too Hard” (284,613,000)
8. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (276,802,000)
9. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie featuring 6ix9ine, “Swervin’” (271,544,000)
10. 21 Savage featuring J. Cole, “A Lot” (257,392,000)

Source: Nielsen Music, for the tracking period of Jan. 4 – June 20, 2019.

* Note: Nielsen Music’s consumption unit totals for albums include SEA and TEA for an album’s songs registered before an album’s release, but during the tracking period.