Every week, my robots scour the biggest nine New Music Friday playlists in the world to see whose getting backed hard by the big green machine. This week:
🏆 The Champ: Rihanna
Taken from the full album for Wakanda Forever, “Born Again” – for the second time in a fortnight – put Rihanna in pole position on the biggest New Music Friday playlists, the biggest artist to secure spots on all nine of them. Looking at the numbers, it also looks like a lot of heavyweights steered clear of this week, with most of other members of this week’s Niners Club carrying ten million followers or less, compared to Rihanna’s fifty million-plus.
🚀 The Challenger: Chelsea Cutler
Chelsea Cutler’s “Men On The Moon” was also featured on all of the big nine NMFs, which for an artist with less than 1m followers is a pretty sizeable woop, and a welcome return to the new music fray after a gap of over a year since her last release.
🥊 Punching Above: GloRilla
Just over a month ago, GloRilla released her track “Tomorrow 2”, which featured Cardi B and made it onto six of the big NMFs. This week, she released her “Anyway, Life’s Great” album, and “Unh Unh” – noticeable NOT featuring anyone else – made it onto six of the lists, again. Not a small achievement, plus she’s growing her audience fast too – 2023’ll be interesting for this artist.
🧛♂️ New Blood: Reneé Rapp
Reneé Rapp (pictured up top) also did brilliantly well this week, with “Too Well” – taken from her debut EP Everything To Everyone – making it onto six of the big nine. Rapp only started releasing music this year, but with appearances on Broadway in Mean Girls, and a lead screen role in the HBO series The Sex Lives Of College Girls, it would seem that on stage, screen, or speakers, Reneé Rapp is likely to have a *very* busy year ahead.