Silk Sonic’s ‘Evening’ Debuts at No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart
'An Evening With Silk Sonic' also debuts at No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart, where it's Mars' second chart-topper & .Paak's first.
Silk Sonic arrives at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as the duo’s first album, An Evening With Silk Sonic, starts in the top slot. The nine-song project from the duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak leads the list dated Nov. 27 through 104,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Nov. 18, according to MRC Data.
An Evening With Silk Sonic, released on Nov. 12 through Aftermath/Atlantic Group, traces 42,000 of its units to traditional album sales and is the genre’s top-selling album of the week. 60,000 units derive from streaming, representing 81.6 million U.S. on-demand streams of Evening songs. The remaining 2,000 units come from song download sales. (One unit equals the following levels of consumption: one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
As Silk Sonic projects contribute to each performer’s individual chart accounts, Bruno Mars picks up his second Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums leader, after his 24K Magic posted eight weeks on top in 2016-17, and Anderson .Paak nabs his first champ. The latter’s previous career peak was a No. 2 result for Ventura in 2019.
Elsewhere, An Evening With Silk Sonic debuts at No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart, where it repeats as Mars’ second chart-topper and .Paak’s first. The album also enters the all-genre Billboard 200 at No. 2, behind Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version).
As Evening arrives, the album debuts six tracks onto the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Those, combined with the three pre-release singles, ensure that all nine of An Evening With Silk Sonic’s songs have made it onto the genre chart.
Here’s a rundown of the new recruits:
No. 17, “After Last Night,” with Thundercat and Bootsy Collins
No. 20, “Blast Off”
No. 22, “Put on a Smile”
No. 23, “Fly as Me”
No. 35, “777”
No. 48, “Silk Sonic Intro”
The Evening lead offering, “Leave the Door Open,” topped Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for eight weeks between April and July, while the second single, “Skate,” peaked at No. 4 in August. The latter is still present on the new chart, rebounding 50-21 thanks to Evening album activity.
The set’s third – and current – single, “Smokin’ out the Window,” leads the collection, as it holds at No. 2 in its second week on the list. Additionally, the track captures the weekly Airplay Gainer and Streaming Gainer awards thanks to surges. On radio, “Smokin’” rises 25-14 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay with an 86% week-over-week audience gain to 8.2 million in the week ending Nov. 21, according to MRC Data. In the streaming sector, the single improved 13% in U.S. clicks to 23.8 million in the week ending Nov. 18.
Seven of the nine Evening songs also debut or have previously shown on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Among them, “After Last Night,” notably marks a milestone for the only other credited artists on the album. With the song’s No. 68 start, Thundercat lands his highest-charting Hot 100 hit among three entries, while funk legend Bootsy Collins captures the first Hot 100 appearance of his career.