Sounwave Rules Hot 100 Producers Chart, Thanks to Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’

Xander Zellner
·4 min read
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Sounwave hits No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 Producers chart (dated May 28), ruling as the top producer in the U.S. for the first time thanks to his work on Kendrick Lamar‘s new No. 1 album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

Sounwave (real name: Mark Anthony Spears) produced or co-produced 13 songs on the 18-track album, all of which debut on the latest Billboard Hot 100. The LP launches at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 295,500 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate – the biggest weekly total for an album this year. Lamar adds his fourth No. 1 on the chart, following 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly, 2016’s untitled unmastered. and 2017’s DAMN.

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Leading the album’s Hot 100 take is “N95,” which Sounwave co-produced with Jahaan Sweet and Boi-1da, new at No. 3. “Die Hard,” which he co-produced with Baby Keem, J.LBS, DJ Dahi and FnZ, debuts at No. 5.

Here’s a recap of Sounwave’s production credits on the May 28 Hot 100:

Hot 100 Rank, Artist Billing, Title (co-producers in addition to Sounwave)
No. 3, Kendrick Lamar, “N95” (Jahaan Sweet, Boi-1da)
No. 5, Kendrick Lamar, Blxst & Amanda Reifer, “Die Hard” (Baby Keem, J.LBS, DJ Dahi, FnZ)
No. 7, Kendrick Lamar & Kodak Black, “Silent Hill” (Jahaan Sweet, Boi-1da)
No. 8, Kendrick Lamar, “United In Grief” (Kendrick Lamar, J.LBS, Duval Timothy)
No. 11, Kendrick Lamar feat. Sampha, “Father Time” (DJ Dahi, Bekon, Beach Noise)
No. 13, Kendrick Lamar, “Rich Spirit” (Jahaan Sweet, DJ Dahi, Frano Huett)
No. 19, Kendrick Lamar, “Worldwide Steppers” (TaeBeast)
No. 20, Kendrick Lamar, “Count Me Out” (Kendrick Lamar, DJ Dahi, J.LBS)
No. 22, Kendrick Lamar with Summer Walker & Ghostface Killah, “Purple Hearts” (DJ Khalil)
No. 23, Kendrick Lamar with Baby Keem & Sam Dew, “Savior” (Kendrick Lamar, J.LBS, Cardo On The Beat, Mario Luciano, Rascal)
No. 51, Kendrick Lamar, “Savior (Interlude)” (Kendrick Lamar, J.LBS)
No. 55, Kendrick Lamar, “Mirror” (Bekon, The Donuts, Craig Balmoris, DJ Dahi)
No. 59, Kendrick Lamar feat. Beth Gibbons, “Mother I Sober” (Bekon, J.LBS)

Sounwave has a longstanding history of collaborating with Lamar. Of Sounwave’s 31 career Hot 100-charting hits as a producer, 27 are by Lamar. The other four are Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz and Saudi’s “X” (No. 49 peak, 2018), Khalid and Swae Lee’s “The Ways” (No. 63, 2018), SOB x RBE’s “Paramedic!”(No. 65, 2018) and Taylor Swift’s “London Boy” (No. 62, 2019). Lamar also had his hand in crafting “Paramedic” (co-writer) and “The Ways” (co-producer and co-writer).

Sounwave first appeared on the Hot 100 as a producer in November 2012 with Lamar’s “m.A.A.d city,” featuring MC Eiht. The track climbed to No. 75 in February 2014.

On the Hot 100 Songwriters chart, Bad Bunny hits No. 1 for the first time, thanks to 20 entries on the latest Hot 100, all from his new album Un Verano Sin Ti. The set soared in at No. 1 on the May 21-dated Billboard 200, becoming just the second No. 1 Spanish-language album, after his own El Ultimo Tour del Mundo in December 2020. All 22 songs from the new set debuted on last week’s Hot 100, as he broke his own recordfor the most simultaneous entries on the survey among Latin music artists.

Bad Bunny (real name: Benito Ocasio) is the fourth artist to top Hot 100 Songwriters this year, after Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dave Bayley (of Glass Animals) and Future.

The weekly Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts are based on total points accrued by a songwriter and producer, respectively, for each attributed song that appears on the Hot 100; plus, genre-based songwriter and producer charts follow the same methodology based on corresponding “Hot”-named genre charts. As with Billboard‘s yearly recaps, multiple writers or producers split points for each song equally (and the dividing of points will lead to occasional ties on rankings).

The full Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts, in addition to the full genre rankings, can be found on Billboard.com.

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