Kendrick Lamar wears many crowns and his comeback album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers has taken home the trophy for Spotify’s most streamed rap album of 2022.
According to Chart Data, the former TDE rapper’s latest effortearned the top spot in the rap category with 1.4 billion streams on Spotify.
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Not far behind was NAV’s Demons Protected by Angels, Jack Harlow’s Come Home The Kids Miss You, Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss and Future’s I NEVER LIKED YOU to reportedly round out the Top 5.
Chart Data confirmed to HipHopDX that the streams are “not guaranteed 2022 streams.” The rankings include lifetime streams for projects with a 2022 release date. Therefore, although Nav’s “Lemonade” collaboration with Internet Money, Gunna and Don Toliver was released as a single in 2020, because it features on Nav’s 2022 album Demons Protected by Angels, all of its streams since its original release count towards its final total.
Back in August, Kendrick’s Big Steppers album became the first rap project to cross the billion stream mark; so him lifting up the championship belt at the end of 2022 doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
K. Dot’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers arrived in May to end the Compton rapper’s drought as fans welcomed his first solo LP in five years. He ended up earning the seventh most first-week sales in 2022, notching just shy of 300,000 with a first week of 296,000 units.
In addition to acclaim from fans, Lamar earned the respect of his peers with his latest offering as Russ gave Kendrick’s “Father Time” song of the year honors.
The Compton native could be adding more hardware to his trophy case in 2023. Kendrick snagged eight Grammy Award nominations for his latest album. He’s picked up nominations for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Music Video for “The Heart Part 5,” along with Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, and Best Melodic Rap Performance.
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He also took home three 2022 HipHopDX Awards for Best Rapper, Best Hip Hop Album (Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers) and Best Music Video (“The Heart Part 5”).
The rap god hit the road for the better part of 2022 as he wrapped up his Big Steppers Tour in New Zealand last month after performing 76 shows in 16 countries spanning three different continents. Kendrick finished off his final performance and promised fans it wasn’t his last time on stage as he’d be back in the future.
