Eminem is closing out the year on a strong note.
Just days after he made history with his eighth consecutive No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200, Eminem took the top spot on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart for the first time in his career. And it’s all thanks to his polarizing ninth studio album, Revival.
According to Billboard, the Artist 100 chart gauges musicians’ “activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming, and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.” The success of his newest project catapulted Em from the No. 37 slot last week to the No. 1 spot on the latest chart, dated Jan. 3. Revival earned 267,000 equivalent album units, 197,000 of which were in traditional album sales, in its first week. Furthermore, three of the album’s track’s—“River,” “Walk on Water” featuring Beyoncé, and “Believe”—are currently sitting on the Hot 100.
In a recent cover story for Complex, Eminem spoke about the making of Revival, the criticism its received, and how he defines “success.”
“To me, success is getting the ear of people, and to me success is when I'm able to perform a show, perform at a show and look in the crowd and you see pretty much every ethnicity there is,” he explained. “That to me is super-powerful, because I'm not the only one who can do that. Music, I feel like it brings people together. I don't know if there's anything that brings people together like music and sports.”
You can check out the full Artist 100 chart here. Billboard points out Eminem is only the fifth rapper to lead the chart in 2017, following Drake, Future, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Z.
