Afroman’s Catalogue Rises Over 500% Following Legal Victory
This week's Trending Up looks at Afroman's First Amendment triumph turning into a robust streaming week, as well as animation-related boosts for Nothing But Thieves and 3OH!3.
Tommy Chong and Afroman attend the 2019 Daytime Beauty Awards at The Taglyan Complex on September 20, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. This week: Afroman turns a headline-capturing legal victory into newfound streaming popularity, while Nothing But Thieves gets a huge look from an Amazon Prime superhero show and 3OH!3 benefits from an animated dance challenge.
Afroman Turns Legal Victory into Streaming Triumphs, Led by “Lemon Pound Cake”“Because I Got High” rapper Afroman found himself back in the zeitgeist after winning a jury verdict last week (Mar. 18). The jurors sided with the Cali rapper in a lawsuit filed by seven Ohio cops, who claimed the MC defamed them by releasing music videos mocking them after a failed, guns-drawn raid on his home in 2022. Naturally, the quirky lawsuit caught the public’s attention, as did Afroman’s testimony that the music videos fell with his First Amendment rights — a hot-button topic across the States right now. As a result, the rapper’s catalogue exploded over 500% in streaming activity in the week following the jury’s decision, according to Luminate.
During the week of his the four-day period leading up to his trial (Mar. 13-16), Afroman’s discography earned 1.12 million official on-demand U.S. streams and just over 100 U.S. digital downloads. In the four-day period following the verdict (Mar. 20-23), those figures jumped 511% to 6.8 million official streams, and 2,113% to over 2,500 paid digital downloads. The buzziest track is “Lemon Pound Cake,” in which Afroman jeers at one deputy for apparently eyeing a cake on his counter. That song jumped 9,353% to 2.12 million official on-demand U.S. streams following the verdict (Mar. 20-23), and leapt a whopping 126,300% to over 1,200 U.S. digital downloads.
The streaming love isn’t exclusive to Afroman’s raid-related joints. His signature hit, the Grammy-nominated “High,” earned over 600,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on the Friday following the verdict (Mar. 20), up 133%.
Lemon Pound Cake, the album that compiles Afroman’s police disses, has already hit No. 8 on Billboard‘s Comedy Albums chart (dated Mar. 28), and bigger gains could very well be in store. — KYLE DENIS
‘Invincible’ Season Premiere Revives Decade-Old Nothing But Thieves Single
English alt-rock band Nothing But Thieves has never totally crossed over on the Billboard charts, but it’s been a fixture on various rock charts for a decade now, since the release of its 2015 self-titled debut album. That set generated multiple hits on the Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and also led to a Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2024 when country superstar Morgan Wallen put his spin on the Nothing But Thieves deep cut “Graveyard Whistling.” But now, it’s one of the less-known singles on the debut that’s getting its moment in the spotlight: “If I Die Tonight.”
The power ballad, which never reached a Billboard airplay, sales or streaming chart during its initial mid-2010s release, got its biggest look yet this month with its inclusion in the latest season of Amazon Prime’s hit animated superhero series Invincible. In the season four premiere, “If I Die Tonight” plays over an opening montage showing the fallout from the previous season’s finale — and plays for over three minutes, giving viewers plenty of opportunity to make it one of the most Shazamed songs in the country the past week.
Plenty of those viewers went on to check out the song on DSPs, as well. After totaling under 17,000 streams during the first four days of the previous tracking week (Mar. 13-16), that number was up to 345,000 for the same period this week (Mar. 20-23) — a gain of 1,942%, according to early data provided by Luminate. It could lead to a big moment for Nothing But Thieves, and to even bigger musical moments on Invincible, now that it’s been confirmed as one of the more valuable shows for synch placements in 2026. – AU
Animation-Inspired Dance Trend Revives 3OH!3’s “Richman”
On Feb. 4, user @/hymnuslop shared an original animation featuring two My Little Pony-inspired characters dancing to Denver electro-pop duo 3OH!3’s “Richman,” setting into motion a streaming resurgence for the 18-year-old deep cut. The clip finds one character lip-syncing in the foreground while the other dances in the background — and the trend has now transferred to real people.
User @/janabananathings was the human to kick the trend into high gear with her March 2 post, which has since garnered nearly four million views and over 540,000 likes. The accompanying sound, which originates from user @/hymnuslop’s clip, boasts over 52,000 TikTok posts. The official 3OH!3 TikTok account got in on the fun, sharing several clips of the EDM duo performing the song throughout the years.
The week user @/janabananathings shared her video (Feb. 27-Mar. 5), “Richman” logged 429,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, up 193% from the week prior. The following week (Mar. 6-12), which accounts for a full week of the trend truly taking off, that figure leapt a further 133% to a little over one million official on-demand U.S. streams. Continuing its ascent, “Richman” jumped another 44% to 1.44 million official streams the next week (March 13-19).
Over the past four weeks, “Richman” has exploded over 1,800% in streaming activity, bringing 3OH!3 back into the center of the pop conversation — with a song that was never even an official single. — K.D.
This article was first published by Billboard Pro.
