Bruno Mars Breaks Kendrick and SZA's Record — 32 Weeks at No. 1

The record is his alone now

For two weeks this month, Bruno Mars shared the top line of the record book. He had matched the 31-week mark set by Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther,” and Previously covered the tie when it happened. Then the run broke. Drake and Don Toliver’s “Solar Eclipse” took the No. 1 spot on the chart dated October 17, and Mars’s song had to climb back before it could make history.

It did. On the chart dated October 24, “I Just Might” returned to No. 1 for its 32nd week — a total no song has ever reached on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The chart in its modern form dates to October 1958, which means Mars now stands alone across nearly seven decades of R&B and hip-hop hits.

By the numbers

The record-setting week was not a formality. For the tracking week of October 9–15, “I Just Might” drew a 51.9 million airplay audience and sold 1,000 copies in the United States, according to Luminate data reported by Billboard — enough to reclaim the summit a week after losing it.

The list it now leads is a history of the genre in miniature:

• 32 weeks — “I Just Might,” Bruno Mars (2026)
• 31 weeks — “Luther,” Kendrick Lamar and SZA (2024–25)
• 22 weeks — “Not Like Us,” Kendrick Lamar (2024–25)
• 21 weeks — “Kill Bill,” SZA (2022–23)
• 20 weeks — “Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (2019)

Kendrick Lamar still holds two of the top three runs. He just no longer holds the top one.

A decade away, then a year of this

“I Just Might” arrived on January 9 as the lead single from The Romantic, Mars’s fourth solo album, which followed on February 27 — his first solo album in roughly a decade, after 24K Magic. The song debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated January 24, his fifth song to top the ranking and, over on the Hot 100, his tenth career No. 1 and his first to debut at the summit.

His earlier leaders on this chart trace the whole arc: “That’s What I Like” in 2017, “Finesse” with Cardi B in 2018, “Please Me” with Cardi B in 2019, and “Leave the Door Open” in 2021 with Anderson .Paak as Silk Sonic. None of them lasted like this. A song released as the opener of a comeback era is still, ten months later, the song the chart cannot move past — interrupted twice, by Drake both times (“Janice STFU” in the spring and “Solar Eclipse” this month), and back on top both times after.

What it means

Longevity records are the hardest kind to fake. A debut week can be bought with bundles, variants and a fan army on a mission; a 32nd week at No. 1, spread across ten months and two interruptions, is just a song that people and radio programmers keep choosing. That is why this one was worth waiting for the finish line instead of calling it at the tie — a shared record is a trivia answer. Sole possession of a 68-year-old chart’s longest run is a career line, the kind that goes in the first paragraph from now on.

Mars took it from the two artists who defined the last two years of this chart. Kendrick and SZA set the mark at 31 with a song that won Record of the Year. Mars broke it with a throwback love song from an album people waited a decade for. Both halves of that sentence are the story of R&B and hip-hop in 2026: the crown keeps moving, and right now it sits with the singer who would not leave the top spot alone until it was his.

Previously, on this record chase: Bruno Mars Ties the Longest No. 1 Run in R&B/Hip-Hop Chart History (Oct 12).