Words by Comfort Nnana Kalu
“The Weekend” has been inching its way through the Billboard Top 100. It was stuck at No. 3, but has officially made the final leap to No. 1 on the R&B charts, making SZA the first woman to hit No. 1 since Rihanna with “Needed Me” in 2016.
According to Billboard, “The Weekend” rose to the top as a result of a huge push in digital sales that raked in 14,000 digital downloads last week, as well as showing up for the first time on R&B/Hip Hop Digital Songs Sales chart. The track not only climbed Billboard, but has also climbed the R&B/Hip Hop Streaming Songs and has stuck at R&B/Hip Hop Airplay chart at No. 8, which is as a result of SZA’s appearance on Saturday Night Live on Dec. 9.
The single continues to shine as SZA debuted her Solange-directed visual last week and was also nominated for “Best R&B Performance” with a total of five nominations, making the songstress the Grammy’s most nominated.
After the nomination announcement, SZA wrote, “ I’m so overwhelmingly grateful for this strangeness, I’m so in awe of God’s plan…I just wanna live up to it. Thank you for considering me…thank you for bonding w my thoughts just the way they were. INFINITE GRATITUDE to the Recording Academy for this INCREDIBLE honor. I can’t even believe I’ve been considered. God bless every person who worked on this album or gave it an ear.”
