Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums

Chart name history

The chart debuted on January 30, 1965, as the Hot R&B LP's. On August 23, 1969, Billboard renamed both singles and albums contingents of the R&B charts as Soul charts; the albums chart was first called Best Selling Soul LP's and then from July 14, 1973, simply Soul LP's.

On June 26, 1982, the singles and album charts were renamed again as Black Singles and Black LPs respectively. The change followed internal debate within Billboard about how to better reflect the growing stylistic range of music made and consumed by Black audiences. Nelson George called the change "long overdue", noting that Black artists had been making pop music beyond soul since the early 1970s. It was also part of a longer evolution in Billboard’s terminology for Black music, which had previously included terms like "Race Records", which was first used in the 1920s by OKeh Records to market Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues". With Billboard's overhaul of its charts on October 20, 1984, the chart became Top Black Albums.

On October 27, 1990, the charts returned to the R&B designation (Top R&B Albums, Hot R&B Singles). On December 11, 1999, Billboard renamed them again as Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, in an effort to recognize the growing sales of hip hop music and the genre's influential relationship to contemporary R&B. The phrase "hip-hop" was chosen over "rap" because the former was considered more inclusive and better reflected the genre's broader cultural influence. Billboard highlighted Lauryn Hill as a defining example of this shift, stating that she was "as accomplished a singer as she is a rapper" and "a prime example of an act who would more appropriately be described as a hip-hop artist than a rapper". The change also acknowledged that many of the top-charting rap tracks at the time had origins in R&B traditions, further blurring the genre lines.

Achievements

Top Rap Albums

Billboard began the Top Rap Albums chart on the weekend of June 26, 2004, although its first publication on print commenced on the week of November 20, 2004. Pop Smoke's posthumous debut, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon holds the record of most weeks at number one on the chart with twenty non-consecutive weeks.

Albums with the most weeks at number one

Artists with the most number-one albums

Notes

References

Works cited

• Whitburn, Joel (2000). Top R&B Albums: 1965–1998. Record Research.

References

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