Mustard Earns First Hot 100 No. 1 As Producer Thanks To Kendrick Lamar's “Not Like Us”

As Kendrick Lamar's “Not Like Us” debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated May 18), the rapper lands his fourth chart leader as a recording artist. Meanwhile, its producer, Mustard, tops the Hot 100 for the first time in that role.

Mustard has produced five previous Hot 100 top 10s, dating back over a decade. Here's a recap of his chart-topping hits as a producer:

As for Lamar, he only wrote “Not Like Us,” the Hot 100-topping hit in the midst of his fiery battle with Drake over the diss track. He wrote his previous three No. 1s as a recording artist.

The exclusive written Hot 100 No. 1 have all but disappeared since the early 2000s. Here's a look at the percentage of leaders drafted by an individual over the past seven decades (since the survey began in 1958):

This decade, just five of the 76 songs that reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the first time have been written by an individual (a 7% that, while down compared to much of the chart's history, marks the higher than the '90s). Unexpectedly connecting holiday cheer with Lamar and Drake's chilling conflict, “Not Like Us” is the first chart leader since Brenda Lee's “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree” for three weeks starting in December. Johnny Marks wrote the carol, which was originally released in 1958.

Before that, Oliver Anthony Music's self-penned “Rich Men North of Richmond” ruled the Hot 100 for two weeks starting last August. The other two exclusively written No. 1s in the 2020s led each other in 2022 (marking the first set of such leaders since 2000): the total Encanto hit “We Don't Talk About Bruno,” written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Glass Animals' “Heat Waves,” written by the group's Dave Bayley.