Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Becomes First Rap Album To Reach 1B Spotify Streams In 2022

Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers album has collected yet another accolade, becoming the first rap album from 2022 to cross one billion streams on Spotify.

Chart Data announced the achievement on Tuesday (August 30). The only project to match Kendrick’s streaming output in the R&B realm is The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, which hit a billion streams in March and then surpassed two billion streams earlier this month.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers has been powered on Spotify by top tracks like “N95” (128,570,543 global streams), “Die Hard” (99,497,158 global streams) and “Rich Spirit” (47,780,629 global streams).

Chart Data also noted that K. Dot’s fifth studio album has sold over 500,000 units, but it has yet to be certified gold by the RIAA. The project could surpass one million sales by the end of 2022.

Released on May 13, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 295,000 total album-equivalent units in its first week — the biggest debut for a rap album this year.

Kendrick fans are running Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers up on Spotify. It’s now over a billion streams ? pic.twitter.com/xQHLN4ThjV

— RapCaviar (@RapCaviar) August 30, 2022

Kendrick Lamar is continuing his trek across North America for The Big Steppers Tour with his cousin Baby Keem and pgLang signee Tanna Leone. The tour is set to invade the West Coast with a pair of shows in Oakland this week.

LeBron James even pulled up to the Vancouver tour date over the weekend, with footage of the four-time NBA champion turning up in the crowd going viral.

“Vancouver!! Thank you for the hospitality over the weekend,” LeBron tweeted after the show. “1st time in your beautiful, wonderful city! @kendricklamar you’re 1 of a kind my brother! SPECIAL show by a SPECIAL person! Appreciate the love!”

In other K. Dot news, the former TDE rapper is already working on his sixth studio album, according to one of his go-to producers.

Sounwave — who has production on 13 out of the 16 songs on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers — recently told Complex work has already started on the rapper’s next LP, which is par for the course for their creative process.

“Oh, we always start, immediately after,” he revealed. “Like, we’re starting on the next one now. That’s never going to change, all the way from the Kendrick Lamar EP. The next day, we started on Section.80. It’s just the ideas never stopped. That’s one of the main reasons I go on tour with him, is to create the next album.

“We can’t skip a beat. We have to just keep it going. There’s no breaks. There’s no such thing as a vacation when you’re doing what you love. Everything you do is what you love to do, so you’re excited.”