Wiz Khalifa‘s 2015 “See You Again” video and single from the original motion picture soundtrack for Furious 7 has achieved a remarkable feat by any standard. The Pittsburgh stoner’s pop-friendly hit has surpassed Psy’s “Gangnam Style” as the most-watched video on the YouTube service, totaling just shy of 2.9 billion videos as of Tuesday (July 11).
The reception to the song was especially robust after its release in March 2015 and by October of that year, it became the first Hip Hop video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. The song was especially moving to fans of the Furious franchise after Walker, a main star of the series, was killed in a single-car accident in 2013. As shown in “See You Again,” it would mark the last time Walker would appear in the films and scenes from Furious 7 are featured throughout the video.
Khalifa’s video gained further traction after it became just the second video to reach 2 billion views after “Gangnam Style.” On Monday (July 10), the clip reached its new historic mark according to a report from the Associated Press, who spoke with the number crunchers at YouTube. The official numbers for “See You Again” sit at 2,897,619,778 while “Gangnam Style” trails at 2,895,111,556.
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The lead single from the Furious 7 soundtrack, which features Atlantic Records singer and songwriter Charlie Puth, is Khalifa’s biggest record to date. Produced by DJ Frank E, Puth, and Andrew Cedar, “See You Again” was also packaged in the worldwide release of Puth’s platinum-selling debut, Nine Track Mind.
Puth tweeted his delight at the news on Monday after breaking Psy’s record. The K-Pop star’s smash hit debuted in 2012 and garnered him worldwide recognition and a series of awards, including YouTube’s “Diamond Play” award for amassing over 10 million subscribers to his channel.
The AP notes that Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” is the third most-watched video on the Google-owned video streaming network with 2,636,503,862 views and counting. Puerto Rican singer and actor Luis Fonsi is hot on the trail of the big three as his hit song “Despacito” featuring Reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, is at 2,490,957,209 views following its January 2017 release.
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Khalifa didn’t make a direct mention of the big news, but did share a story from Forbes mentioning the feat via his Twitter account.
For the record, I joined @YouTube in 2007 hoping to make a video that would reach 10,000 views. Just heard about See You Again…wow.
— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) July 11, 2017
