Could Playboi Carti or Chappell Roan Unseat Kendrick & SZA on the Hot 100? 

The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated March 29, we look at the chances of generational rap phenom Playboi Carti and breakout pop superstar Chappell Roan to take over the chart’s top spot.  

Playboi Carti, “Evil J0rdan” (AWGE/Interscope/ICLG): After years of delays that had longtime fans wondering if Playboi Carti would ever release the follow-up to 2020’s cult favorite Whole Lotta Red, Carti finally dropped the long-promised I Am Music set last Friday (March 14) — with its title surprisingly shorted to just “Music.” Arriving in the not-so-early morning, the sprawling new collection offered 30 tracks for the Carti faithful, boasting a guest list of such big names as The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug and even man-of-the-moment Kendrick Lamar.  

Despite the A-listers featured on the set, it’s a Carti solo track that’s in the early lead on streaming services. The booming “Evil J0rdan,” fourth of the 30 tracks, currently sits atop both the real-time Apple Music chart and Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA listing, and ranks below just the new Bhad Bhabie diss video (!!) on YouTube’s Trending for Music ranking. The song should be in line for the chart’s top debut on the Hot 100, likely contending for an entrance in the top five.  

Will it be enough to contend for No. 1? It will be tough for it to really challenge the currently reigning “Luther” without much radio support – which is tough enough to amass quickly for any new rap song, and doubly so for one by the often purposefully abrasive Carti, who has unsurprisingly never really found much of a foothold on the airwaves. (Thus far, the amount of airplay “J0rdan” has received has been negligible.)  

Chappell Roan, “The Giver” (Amusement/Island): Few songs of 2025 will be as hotly anticipated as “The Giver,” the first brand-new drop from Chappell Roan since her rapid rise to superstardom over the course of 2024. In truth, “brand new” should come with a bit of an asterisk, as the country-flavored new song was first heard by fans last November, when Roan debuted the song as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live. But “The Giver” did not receive official release until late last Thursday, following a weeks-long rollout of interviews and Instagram posts and Times Square billboards in promotion of the new single. 

Many chart-watchers wondered if all the excitement around Roan in 2024 and early 2025 would lead to a Hot 100 No. 1 debut with her first release back. That doesn’t seem particularly likely at this point for “The Giver,” which has ranked below multiple songs from Carti’s Music album on DSPs since its first full day of release on Friday – and which did briefly top the iTunes chart over the weekend, but has already fallen to No. 9 on that listing since. In fact, it isn’t even the highest-ranking Roan song on that ranking: “Pink Pony Club,” which hits a new peak of No. 7 on the Hot 100 this week, lands at No. 2 on the downloads chart, and also ranks above “The Giver” on Apple Music’s real-time listing.  

Combined with its strong performance at radio – the song moves into the top five on Pop Airplay this week — “Pink Pony Club” should be ranking in similar territory to “The Giver” on the Hot 100 next week. But “The Giver” has already amassed 1.5 million audience impressions (across all formats), per Luminate — with just over 300,000 of those impressions coming from country stations – and should have a strong overall debut on the airwaves in its first full week.  

Kendrick Lamar & SZA, “Luther” (pgLang/Interscope/ICLG): Since taking over the Hot 100 in the weeks following Kendrick Lamar’s triumphant Super Bowl performance, “Luther” has proven fairly stable atop the chart – topping Streaming Songs for each of the last four weeks, while also climbing to No. 2 on Radio Songs, as it continues its cross-platform dominance. That should all continue next week, as “Luther” will likely give up its streaming crown but continue to gain on radio (and challenge for the top spot on Radio Songs), with its combination of stellar performance across the two platforms making it tough to unseat atop the Hot 100. 

What’s more, Kendrick may add another few entries to his current Hot 100 takeover, as a featured guest on three strong-performing tracks on Playboi Carti’s Music: “Mojo Jojo,” “Backd00r” and “Good Credit.” Just another three on the pile for Lamar, who already boasts seven entries on the chart this week – including five in the top 20, and three (“Luther,” “Not Like Us” and “TV Off” with Lefty Gunplay) in the top five.  

Drake, “Nokia” (OVO/Santa Anna/Republic): Though the chart unquestionably belongs to Lamar currently, it’s worth noting that his 2024-25 adversary also may be on his way to his biggest hit on the chart in years. Though “Nokia” was not the highest-debuting song from Drake’s recent full-length PartyNextDoor teamup LP $ome $exy $ongs 4 U – it bowed at No. 10, while “Gimme a Hug” entered at No. 6 – it has proven the longest-lasting, spending a third week inside the top 10 and even climbing to a new peak of No. 8 this frame, as it sits in the top six of the regular charts on Apple Music, Spotify and iTunes.  

Radio has been relatively slow to pick up on “Nokia” — “Hug” was the initial focus track from the set for most radio formats – but it is starting to grow there as well, rising 31-24 on Rhythmic Airplay and debuting at No. 36 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay this week.