Cardi B’s ‘Bodak Yellow’ Makes Its Move to No. 1

It is not just any woman who can knock Taylor Swift from No. 1.

But Cardi B, whose “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” ascends to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week, is no ordinary woman. A former stripper who grew up in the Bronx, she became an Instagram celebrity and star on “Love & Hip Hop: New York” with bawdy talk and lots of wigs.

“Bodak Yellow” (in which she raps, “I don’t dance now, I make money moves”) has been shooting fast up the chart this summer, and on the latest edition it goes to No. 1, bumping Ms. Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” to third place after three weeks at the top. (Post Malone’s “Rockstar” is No. 2.)


“Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” marks the first chart-topper by a solo female rapper in nearly two decades, since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” in 1998. Cardi B’s label, Atlantic Records, celebrated the milestone on Monday afternoon in Manhattan with a Champagne toast and a cake modeled after a box of Christian Louboutin high heels (referred to in the song as “red bottoms,” or “bloody shoes”).

In brief remarks to the crowd, Cardi B noted the grass-roots, viral nature of the song’s rise, thanking her friends and family for promoting it on social media. “I never asked them, they just did it voluntarily, every day harassing their followers like, ‘Make sure you download and stream “Bodak Yellow”’ — and look what you made me do,” she said, breaking into a good-natured rendition of Ms. Swift’s hit.

Also this week, Foo Fighters clinched the No. 1 album spot for a second time with “Concrete and Gold” (RCA), the band’s ninth studio release, which opened at No. 1 with 120,000 sales and 9.3 million streams, according to Nielsen. The rapper Lil Uzi Vert rose two spots to No. 2 with “Luv Is Rage 2,” and the country singer Thomas Rhett’s “Life Changes,” last week’s top seller, fell to No. 3. Kendrick Lamar is in fourth place, XXXTentacion is No. 5 and Khalid is No 6.

But perhaps the biggest news in the Top 10 is from BTS, a seven-piece boy band from South Korea, whose EP “Love Yourself: ‘Her’” opened at No. 7, the highest chart position ever for a K-pop group. The album had 18,000 sales and 14.5 million streams.