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Chart Beat

Drake & PartyNextDoor Debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums Chart with '$ome $exy $ongs 4 U'

The R&B collab album is at No. 1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart and the Billboard 200 this week, giving Drake a win after a tough year. Kendrick Lamar's “Not Like Us,” meanwhile, has fallen out of the No. 1 spot on the Canadian Hot 100.

Drake & PartyNextDoor ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ Album Art
Drake & PartyNextDoor ‘$ome $exy $ongs 4 U’ Album Art

Drake is back on top of the world — or, at least, the CN Tower.

The Toronto superstar and his collaborator PartyNextDoor have the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart dated March 1 and the Billboard 200 with their new R&B album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U.


It's Drake's first full-length release since his reputation took a beating during his beef with Kendrick Lamar in 2024. The latter went on to win record and song of the year at the 2025 Grammys for his Drake diss "Not Like Us" and sent that track to No. 1 in Canada when he performed it at the Super Bowl half time show.

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Drake, for his part, has been leaning into collaborations since the beef, putting out "U My Everything" with Sexyy Red and making a surprise appearance at PartyNextDoor's homecoming Budweiser Stage show last summer.

The album is classic OVO — moody, murky production; melancholy relationship musings; and choice Toronto references. Opening track "CN Tower" maps Drake's emotional state onto the colours lighting up the Toronto landmark, which is about as Drake as Drake gets. He's leaning into what he knows and relationships he can trust, and with $ome$exy$ongs that choice is paying off on the charts.

The release has flooded the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 this week. As in the U.S., every single one of the album's 21 songs are charting this week.

The upbeat flip phone nostalgia track "Nokia" is charting highest at No. 5, followed by the high energy (and disconcertingly titled) "Gimme A Hug" at No. 10. That latter track features several beat switch-ups and is the sole pure rap track on the album, where Drake lets some of his anger and frustration at the past year seep through.

While Drake is topping the Albums chart, Kendrick has fallen off the top of the Billboard Canadian Hot 100, where his song "Not Like Us" rose for the first time last week. On the Hot 100 in the U.S., Kendrick Lamar's SZA collab "Luther" has the top spot, but on the Canadian Hot 100 for the week dated March 1, No. 1 belongs to Bruno Mars and ROSÉ's "APT." That song hits a new peak at No. 1 in its 18th week on the chart.

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Sabrina Carpenter has several new entries on the Canadian Hot 100 from the deluxe edition of Short N Sweet, with "Busy Woman" debuting at No. 38 while the album rises back to No. 2 on the Canadian Albums chart.

Canadian country singer Josh Ross, riding high off his leading five nominations at the 2025 Junos, also has a new chart debut this week. "Leave Me Too" is a lovelorn dispatch, where he pictures himself from his girl's perspective, alongside some sweet slide guitar. It arrives at No. 94 on the Canadian Hot 100.

Check out the full charts here.

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Music News Digest: CRTC Aims To Fill a Gap for Indigenous Radio in Toronto and Ottawa
Photo by Will Francis on Unsplash
FYI

Music News Digest: CRTC Aims To Fill a Gap for Indigenous Radio in Toronto and Ottawa

Also this week: Sled Island reveals initial lineup curated by clipping., Truro hosts Nova Scotia Music Week and more.

The CRTC recently launched a call for applications for FM radio stations to serve Indigenous communities in Toronto and Ottawa. Broadcast Dialogue reports "the call follows the demise of First Peoples Radio’s ELMNT FM stations, which went off the air on Sept. 1 last year. Launched in the fall of 2018, the stations had a goal to 'fill the gap' for urban Indigenous listeners under-represented in the radio landscape. They carried an 'Indigenous-variety' format, featuring both English and Indigenous-language spoken-word and musical programming, with 25% of the playlist dedicated to Indigenous talent.

In its call, the commission says in its view, "there is a need and a demand for radio stations to serve the needs and interests of those communities."

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