Alicia Keys is undoubtedly Billboard’s millennium R&B Queen.

The best-selling female R&B artist of the century, she’s long dominated the organization’s related music tallies – a reign highlighted by a whopping eleven #1 hits on the ‘Adult R&B Song’ chart (more than any other artist), seven #1 hits on the ‘Top R&B/Hip Hop’ album chart, and eight #1 hits on the ‘R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay’ chart.  Pertaining to the latter, Keys previously held as the list’s leading female until this week when her ‘Put It in a Love Song’ partner Beyoncé – courtesy of her co-starring role on Megan Thee Stallion‘s ‘Savage’ – raced in for a tie.

The lift on this week’s chart, which occurred thanks to 27.3 million in radio audience impressions, made the Houston natives return female artists to the chart summit for the first time in nearly a year (following Cardi B‘s 2019 hit ‘Please Me’).

The result?  Keys & Bey share the title as the ‘R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay’ queens with 8 chart-toppers each.  As we celebrate the win, look inside to see who joins ‘Savage’ on that chart and the Hot 100 on this week’s ‘Chart Check.’

This Week’s Hot 100

This Week’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay Chart

R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay is a chart published by Billboard that ranks the top R&B and Hip-Hop songs in the United States based on audience impressions from a panel of radio stations.  The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart encompasses two separate airplay charts – both of which are based on radio spins rather than audience impressions: Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop and Adult R&B Airplay (which measure airplay on urban contemporary and urban adult contemporary stations respectively).

Report:

Here’s a full count of Beyoncé’s eight leaders.

Song Title, Additional Artists (if any), Weeks at No. 1, Peak Date
“Crazy in Love,” featuring Jay-Z, four, July 19, 2003
“Baby Boy,” featuring Sean Paul, five, Sept. 27, 2003
“Irreplaceable,” nine, Dec. 2, 2006
“Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” 12, Nov. 29, 2008
“Love on Top,” seven, March 10, 2012
“Drunk in Love,” featuring Jay-Z, eight, Feb. 1, 2014
“7/11,” five, Feb. 14, 2015
“Savage,” Megan Thee Stallion featuring Beyoncé, one to date, May 23, 2020

On the overall list, the artists land in a five-way tie for fourth place since the chart began in 1993. Here’s the refreshed standings:

26, Drake
15, Usher
12, Lil Wayne
8, Alicia Keys
8, Beyoncé
8, Chris Brown
8, Jay-Z
8, R. Kelly

[main photo source:  Getty Images]

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