Ella Langley just rewrote Hot 100 history, and a Compton rapper's final tour numbers made it a week to remember
Country singer Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' hit 23 weeks at No. 1, snapping Mariah Carey's all-time Billboard Hot 100 record. Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar's Grand National Tour landed its own landmark figure.
In brief
A country song from Alabama just outlasted everything in Hot 100 history
Twenty-three weeks. That's where Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" sits right now at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and that number means something nobody in Nashville, New York, or anywhere else has ever been able to say before. The song is officially the longest-running No. 1 in the chart's history.
Billboard announced on September 22 that "Choosin' Texas" earned its 23rd week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, giving the Alabama-born singer-songwriter the most weeks ever at No. 1. That's not a country record or a streaming record with an asterisk. It's the whole thing.
The song spent 23 weeks at No. 1, surpassing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which previously held the record with 22 weeks at the top of the chart. Carey's holiday perennial had a built-in annual advantage, returning to the chart every December. Langley's track, which sits squarely in the country genre and has no seasonal hook to ride, ran it down anyway.
In a social media video captioned "Texas Forever," posted September 22, Langley said she was left speechless after receiving the news. "Just thank you, thank you so much," Langley said. "It's changing my life. It's changing lives of the writers of this song. It's changing lives of my family."
Released on October 17, 2025, as the lead single from her second studio album Dandelion, Langley wrote the track with Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, and Joybeth Taylor, and produced it with Lambert and Ben West. The song is about a woman who loses her man to a Texas girl after taking him home to Abilene. Lambert also sings background vocals.
According to industry data cited by the Associated Press, "Choosin' Texas" had more than 911 million on-demand streams in the United States and 1.26 billion globally as of mid-August. Those figures are from six weeks before the record actually broke. The final count will be bigger.
The chart journey itself reads like a relay race that nobody else was allowed to enter. "Choosin' Texas" became the first song by a female artist to reach No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay, and the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously. Then it just kept going. As "Choosin' Texas" and her follow-up single "Be Her" held Nos. 1 and 2 on the Hot 100 on charts dated May 6 and 23, Langley became the first artist known primarily for country music in the chart's history to simultaneously occupy the list's top two spots for multiple weeks.
For context on how absurd 23 weeks at No. 1 actually is: Taylor Swift spent 5 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2026, Bruno Mars had 3, and Drake had 2. Langley spent more weeks alone at the top than those three combined.
Kendrick's final tour numbers landed the same week
The record-breaking energy didn't stop at Nashville. On September 24, chart data service Touring Data posted the completed figures for Kendrick Lamar's Grand National Tour, and they confirm what many suspected was coming.
Altogether, the tour generated $390.7 million across 47 shows with 2.037 million tickets sold, making the Grand National Tour the highest-grossing rap tour in history. The updated numbers include the tour's Australian and Latin American dates, adding more than $58 million and roughly half a million tickets to the previously reported $332.1 million and 1.5 million-plus figures.
SZA co-headlined the North American and European legs before Kendrick continued the final international dates as a solo headliner. Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour still sits in the distance among the highest-grossing tours by R&B artists at $579.8 million, but Lamar now has the biggest stadium tour ever among rappers.
Touring Data also revealed that Lamar's concert in Mexico City set a personal record in his career for his highest-grossing and most-attended solo concert, with $5.879 million from 58,426 tickets.
According to HotNewHipHop, the Grand National Tour gave Kendrick Lamar the highest-grossing year by a rapper in history. That framing puts it slightly differently from the per-tour record: it is a combined calendar-year figure that no rapper has reached.
The two stories don't have much in common on the surface. A country record-setter from Hope Hull, Alabama, and a Compton rapper wrapping one of the biggest concert runs the music industry has seen. But both numbers landed within 48 hours of each other, and both ask the same uncomfortable question of the industry's usual assumptions about genre ceilings and audience limits.
Langley performed at the 9th Annual Nashville Songwriter Awards at Ryman Auditorium on September 22, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee, the same night her record was announced. She picked up the award on the same stage where country music's foundational acts have performed for decades. The song was recorded at Sound Emporium in Nashville and produced in part by Miranda Lambert, and it beat every record that every pop, hip-hop, and R&B song ever set on the Hot 100. That's a sentence worth reading twice.
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CAN I KICK IT? screens New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument, on Aug. 22. (Courtesy SHAOLIN JAZZ)
The live-cinema series CAN I KICK IT? returns to the National Mall this month with what its producers are calling the "Gangsters on the Mall" chapter of their free outdoor summer run. On Saturday, August 22, the SHAOLIN JAZZ production brings the 1991 crime classic New Jack City to the Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument for a night of film, music, and community under the DC summer sky.
What sets the event apart is the sound. As the film plays, DJ 2-Tone Jones builds an original score in real time, reimagining one of the most iconic crime movies of the ’90s through hip-hop, soul, funk, and more. It is less a movie screening than a live performance built around the film.
The details:
Film: New Jack City (1991), with a live soundtrack by DJ 2-Tone Jones
When: Saturday, August 22 — seating opens at 7:30 p.m. (bring lawn chairs and blankets); film begins at 8:30 p.m.
Where: Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument, Independence Ave SW & 15th St NW
A parking note from the organizers: expect road closures and restricted parking east of 14th Street NW due to a separate race event in the District. Roads west of 14th Street NW will be accessible and available for parking.
New Jack City is the second of three screenings in this year’s free CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series, which opened with Black Panther at Skyland Town Center and concludes with Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial on September 5. Produced by the Washington, DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, the series has presented more than 150 live cinematic experiences at venues across the country, from Lincoln Center to SXSW.
"I wanted to be able to tell good stories with substance and remove the ‘ego’ out of the art," said Andrew Huang during a recent interview. Now, he’s building his career at the intersection of discipline, creativity and innovation.
Andrew Huang, founder of New Place Studios. (Courtesy photo)
As a Chinese American, Huang was reared with a deep respect for hard work, consistency and excellence. He describes his childhood as "not so affluent" and later attended college to hone his passion for videography. "In college I tried to do something I loved, which was video, but along the way I knew that I had to find a job. And so I thought, ‘what was the low hanging fruit to get to that stable 9 to 5 job?,’" he stated.
Later in life, Huang found himself working for corporations where his creativity was often limited, eventually leading to burnout. "I worked in a corporation for a long time and there were a lot of missing pieces. I wanted to fill in gaps missing in corporate video production," said Huang.
He later described how his upbringing and a mindset of "survival" led him toward a corporate career. However, his desire for balance and authentic storytelling ultimately pushed him to take the entrepreneurial leap.
"I founded a new place where you can create video and film with ‘substance and style,’" said Huang. His desire for work-life balance and passion for storytelling naturally evolved into a small business based in Virginia. With the launch of New Place Studios, the entrepreneur quickly found himself reconnecting with the values that would become the foundation of everything he creates behind the camera.
Huang said being a business owner has allowed him to first embrace himself. While others may see video as simply capturing moments, he sees it as a way to preserve stories that inspire, connect and leave a lasting imprint.
By combining cinematic visuals with cutting-edge production techniques and a keen understanding of branding, Huang helps organizations and individuals communicate their vision with purpose. He said understanding a client’s "why" serves as the compass for delivering the services they need.
One benefit of working with a small business, he said, is that clients get to see the production process unfold through a micro lens while working with the same faces throughout the entire project. "The work feels personal," said Huang.
Huang does not regret leaving behind the flash-over-substance mentality and corporate hustle culture. That does not mean the Asian American entrepreneur has been without challenges in the industry. "It’s relatively hard to find other Asian American creatives or people who would want to work with me in the DMV," said Huang.
He identifies the industry culture in which everyone is trying to blend in, creatives may fear displaying their Asian identity and some feel pressure to adopt an American corporate persona. He also points to what he describes as a level of gatekeeping within the industry. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 statistics, Asian American and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs own more than 3 million businesses and employ 5.2 million people in the United States.
After tapping into organizations such as SCORE, which offers free small business mentorship, New Place Studios has become a trusted creative partner throughout the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia). The company produces a range of creative services, including commercials, corporate branding, documentaries, film, 2D animation, motion graphics and photography.
For Huang, entrepreneurship has become more than a departure from corporate life. It has given him the freedom to create with intention, build meaningful connections and tell stories that go beyond the surface.
The 2026 CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
For three Saturdays this summer, some of Washington’s most familiar public spaces will do something they rarely do after dark: fill up with blankets, lawn chairs, and the sound of a movie being scored live, in real time. CAN I KICK IT?, the traveling “live cinema” series produced by the DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, is bringing a free outdoor run to the city — pairing three era-defining films with an original soundtrack performed on the spot by DJ 2-Tone Jones.
The premise is what sets it apart from a normal screening in the park. Rather than simply pressing play, 2-Tone Jones builds a score as the film unfolds, pulling from hip-hop, soul, funk, jazz, rock, electronic music, and sounds from around the world. The result, the organizers say, is less a movie night than a one-time performance — the same film you know, wired to a soundtrack you have never heard and will not hear again. Guest DJs warm up the crowd starting at 7:30 PM before each 8:30 PM screening.
The 2026 outdoor schedule
All three events are free and open to the public.
Saturday, August 8 — Black Panther at Skyland Town Center. A pop-up marketplace and community activities kick off the evening; guest DJs at 7:30 PM, film at 8:30 PM. Marvel’s superhero epic gets a one-night-only live score in Southeast DC.
Saturday, August 22 — New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument. Seating begins at 7:30 PM; the film starts at 8:30 PM. The 1991 crime drama plays out at the foot of one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.
Saturday, September 5 — Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial. Seating at 7:30 PM; film at 8:30 PM. The series closes with Brian De Palma’s crime saga against the backdrop of the Memorial, scored live from start to finish.
First up: Black Panther at Skyland Town Center on August 8. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
A DC company with a national footprint
SHAOLIN JAZZ describes itself as a Washington-based arts company working at the intersection of music, film, art, and culture, and CAN I KICK IT? is its signature production. According to the organizers, the series has staged more than 150 live cinematic experiences around the country — at performing arts centers, museums, festivals, and cultural institutions including Lincoln Center in New York, SXSW, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Republic Square in Austin, the Tacoma Armory, and The Cary Theater.
“CAN I KICK IT? has always been about creating a shared experience,” said Gerald Watson, co-founder of SHAOLIN JAZZ. “When you combine iconic films with live music in public spaces, something special happens. People aren’t just watching a movie — they’re experiencing it together. That’s what makes these nights so memorable.”
Cinema as a community event
The DC run lands as cities across the country look for new ways to activate public space through arts and culture — and this series is a straightforward pitch for how to do it: take a landmark everyone already knows, add a film everyone has an opinion about, and let a live soundtrack turn the evening into something neighbors experience shoulder to shoulder. Families, film buffs, and music fans are all invited, and admission won’t cost a thing.
The CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series runs August 8, August 22, and September 5. All events are free; check SHAOLIN JAZZ (shaolinjazz.com) for the latest details and any weather updates before heading out.
