SZA’s “Kill Bill” slices through all songs standing in its way to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart (dated April 22).
The song, released on Top Dawg/RCA Records, becomes SZA’s second leader on the mainstream top 40-based radio ranking, and first in a lead role. She previously reigned as featured on Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More,” for a week in July 2021.
The latest list reflects airplay, as monitored by Mediabase and provided to Billboard by Luminate, in the week ending April 13. Its new remix featuring Doja Cat arrived at midnight ET today (April 14) and will begin contributing to next week’s charts (dated April 29), with all versions of the song rolling up into one chart listing.
The song has spent eight weeks at its No. 2 high (SZA’s career best) on the all-genre, multi-metric Billboard Hot 100, through the most recently published April 15-dated chart. On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs survey, which uses the same methodology, it added a 16th week at No. 1 on the April 15 tally – breaking the record for the longest reign for a song by a woman in a lead role in the ranking’s history.
“Kill Bill” is from SZA’s album SOS, which has topped the Billboard 200 chart for 10 weeks, starting upon its debut in December.
RCA originally targeted ballad “Nobody Gets Me” for pop radio, but as streaming surged for “Kill Bill,” the label decided to formally promote both simultaneously. “Nobody Gets Me” hit No. 18 on Pop Airplay in February.
As for the tongue-in-cheek murder plot (turned confession) storyline of “Kill Bill,” RCA has promoted two radio edits – one in which “I might kill” / “I just killed my ex” is simply omitted and one in which “kill” / “killed” are replaced by the swooshing sound of a knife.
Said Jon Zellner, iHeartMedia president of programming operations/digital music, in January, “While violent, [it] certainly is creating a buzz. Are there really people who would rather go to jail or hell than be alone?”
All charts dated April 22 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, April 18.
