Drake hits No. 1 spot on Billboard 100

TORONTO — Drake is finally getting a view from the top of the Billboard U.S. song chart.

The Toronto musician climbed to the No. 1 spot this week on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 with One Dance, his latest single. It becomes the first time he’s scored a chart-topping song as a solo artist.

The rapper also grabbed the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 album chart with his latest album, Views, marking his best sales week ever and the biggest week for any album this year.

Views sold 1.04 million equivalent album units for the week ending May 5, according to Nielsen Music, which compiles the charts for Billboard.

Of those figures, traditional album sales represented 852,000 copies while the rest came from streaming equivalent units, a calculation tabulated from song plays on services such as Apple Music and Spotify.

Drake has been riding a wave of attention over the past few months, helped by the viral popularity of his track Hotline Bling and his collaborations with other artists. But a No. 1 U.S. single has always been elusive on his own. Last year’s Hotline Bling topped out at No. 2 on Billboard and Best I Ever Had in 2009 also lost steam just short of the peak position.

Drake has made appearances on the top of the chart in other ways. He reached the heights twice in featured appearances on two Rihanna tracks — What’s My Name? in 2010 and Work this year. Views debuted exclusively through Apple Music on April 29 and on May 6 became available through other digital retailers and on CD.