For decades, thirteen was the number. Thirteen chart toppers. Thirteen times Michael Jackson’s name sat at the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo male artist, a figure that stood for so long it began to feel permanent, a fact of music the way gravity is a fact of physics.
Then came Drake, and then came “Janice STFU,” and then came fourteen.
The song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated May 30, 2026, giving the Toronto rapper his fourteenth career chart topper.
It was not just a new peak. It was a passing of the torch that many believed would never be passed. Drake is now the solo male artist with the most No. 1 singles in the 67-year history of the Hot 100, outpacing a man who moonwalked his way into the cultural consciousness of virtually every human being alive in the 1980s.
What makes the milestone particularly striking is the company Drake now keeps. With 14 No. 1s, he ties Rihanna and Taylor Swift across all artists for that total, sitting behind only Mariah Carey, who has 19, and The Beatles, who hold the all-time record at 20. The solo male record is Drake’s alone.
The week surrounding the record was nothing short of extraordinary. Drake simultaneously released three albums, ICEMAN, HABIBTI, and MAID OF HONOUR, which debuted at Nos. 1, 2, and 3 respectively on the Billboard 200, making him the first artist in the album chart’s 70-year history to occupy all three top positions at the same time. Nine of the top ten songs on the Hot 100 that week were Drake’s, a near-total annexation of popular music’s most prominent real estate.
Drake also extended his all-time record for career Hot 100 top ten entries to 90, a total that dwarfs Taylor Swift’s second-place count of 69.
He became the first artist in history to accumulate more than 400 career entries on the chart, adding 40 debuts in a single week, itself a new record. The previous single-week record of 37 songs, set by Morgan Wallen in 2025, was surpassed by five.
The context of the record matters. Jackson built his 13 No. 1s across an era defined by radio play and physical sales, in an industry that had no streaming metrics, no TikTok virality cycles, and no algorithm-driven playlist placements. Drake’s No. 1s have come in a profoundly different chart methodology era, one that weighs audio streams, video streams, and digital sales alongside airplay. Whether that changes how one views the record is a matter of perspective, but the number on the chart is unambiguous.
Jackson earned his first solo Hot 100 No. 1 with “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” in 1979 and accumulated his tally across more than two decades. Drake’s run began with “One Dance” in 2016 and has accelerated with remarkable consistency, including multiple No. 1 debuts that arrived as a direct consequence of mass-streaming events tied to high-profile album releases.
Fourteen. That is where the record stands now, and it belongs to Drake alone among solo male artists. The chart will not remember how it was achieved or what era produced it. It will only remember the name at the top, and for this particular line in the ledger, that name is no longer Michael Jackson’s.
