Pop Smoke’s work continues to make history.
The late artist’s debut album Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon is now the Billboard Top Rap Albums chart’s longest-running No. 1 record. The star-studded posthumous project has notched 20 weeks on top of the chart since its release in July 2020. This pushes him ahead of the previous record-holder, Eminem, whose Recovery spent 19 weeks reigning over the Top Rap Albums from 2010-11.
Behind the now-No. 2 Recovery album is Drake’s classic Take Care, which spent 16 weeks at No. 1, followed by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist (13 weeks) and Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN, which topped the chart for 11 weeks.
Along with his Top Rap Albums feat, Pop Smoke is inching toward the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums crown. Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon has currently spent more weeks at No. 1 on that chart than any album since 1990. He’s also surpassed Michael Jackson’s iconic Bad and Prince’s legendary Purple Rain. Pop now only trails MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt Em, which strung together the most weeks back in 1990.
Although Pop Smoke snatched a record away from Eminem, Marshall was still able to re-insert himself into the history books, as Slim Shady’s 2005 LP Curtain Call has become the first album to spend an entire decade on the Billboard 200 Chart.
