Anderson .Paak and Cordae Finally Get Their First Rap No. 1 — Together

Seven years is a long time to build to a first No. 1. Anderson .Paak and Cordae started in 2019, when .Paak sang and co-produced "RNP" on Cordae's debut album The Lost Boy. They came back with "Two Tens" in 2023 and "Summer Drop" in 2024. This fall they finally made the whole album — and the whole album is what put them on top.

Heavy Is the Crown, released October 23 through Apeshit, Mass Appeal Records and Empire Distribution, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Rap Albums chart dated this week. It is the first leader on that chart for either artist.

The number underneath the number

The headline number is 30,000 equivalent album units for the tracking week of October 23–29, per Luminate. The split matters more than the total: 19,000 of those units came from album sales and 11,000 from streaming. In a chart era where most rap No. 1s arrive on streams alone, this one was bought more than it was played — the audience showed up with money, not just minutes.

That is also the honest limit of the story. This is a genre-chart No. 1, not a Billboard 200 No. 1: the same album opens at No. 11 on the all-genre chart, and at No. 2 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It is a real first, and a modest-sized one. Both things are true, and the second one does not cancel the first.

Where they were stuck before

Cordae had been close and never over. The Lost Boy peaked at No. 6 on Top Rap Albums in August 2019; From a Birds Eye View got to No. 4 in January 2022. .Paak's ceiling was No. 3 with Yes Lawd! in November 2016, recorded as NxWorries with producer Knxwledge, and No. 5 with his solo album Oxnard in December 2018. He has topped the broader Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart before — with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic — but never the rap albums chart under his own name. Now he has, with Cordae beside him.

J. Cole is in the credits, not the features

There are no guest features on the 11 tracks. The names are behind the boards instead: production from J. Cole — who also produced the pair's earlier "RNP" and "Two Tens" — alongside 9th Wonder, Swizz Beatz and Conductor Williams. J. Cole produces the opener, "58th Floor." A house name helping two other artists to their first rap No. 1, without taking a verse on it, is its own kind of story.

The album's biggest song so far is "Airbender," which collected 2.4 million official U.S. on-demand streams in its opening week and debuts at No. 21 on Hot Rap Songs. That entry is a first for .Paak on that chart, and Cordae's fourth.

The lead single got the full visual treatment: "A Good Day," directed by Dave Meyers, is a Friday homage starring Jennifer Freeman.

Cordae marked the moment on X in the terms the numbers support — not a victory lap, a progress report: eight years in professionally, fourteen since his first mixtape, "good things take time," and still more work to do. The chart agrees with the order of those sentences. The work came first. The No. 1 came seven years after the first record they made together.