J. Cole may have taken an off season from the charts for a bit, but that didn’t last very long.
Now, four tracks from Cole’s latest Billboard 200-topping album The Off-Season have found themselves within the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, debuting as high as No. 2.
It’s an impressive feat for Cole, as “My Life” debuted at No. 2, “Amari” at No. 5, “Pride is the Devil” at No. 7, and “95 South” at No. 8. Cole likely would’ve topped the charts with “My Life” too, but this week that crown goes to 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo and her latest pop-punk single “good 4 u.” That marks Rodrigo’s second Hot 100 chart-topper, while Cole now has 10 career top 10s.
As for the rest of the album, all 12 songs charted on the Hot 100’s top 40 this week as well, a big achievement for Cole after he landed all 12 KOD tracks on the chart in 2018.
The news of Jermaine’s chart takeover comes as The Off-Season debuted at No. 1 on the album’s chart and moved an impressive 282,000 equivalent units in its first week, with 37,000 album sales and 325.05 million on-demand song streams. It marked the largest streaming week for any album this year so far and the biggest week for a hip-hop record in 2021, according to MRC Data.
Back in 2018, Cole was the first act to debut three songs within the top 10 of the Hot 100, thanks to the success of KOD, which all 12 tracks also charted for. Drake took things up a notch this year by debuting three songs at No. 1, 2 and 3, after the release of Scary Hours 2.
