Welcome to Billboard Pro‘s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

This week: Big winners at the Tonys see streaming bumps — as does perhaps the show’s biggest performer — while a couple TikTok-bumped artists go two-for-two and a Spotify exec talks Songs of the Summer predictions.

Tony Awards Spur Streaming Gains for Outsiders, Stereophonic & Jay-Z 

Last Sunday (June 16), Oscar winner Ariana DeBose hosted the Tony Awards for a third consecutive year as the Great White Way celebrated the best of the 2023-2024 theater season. Stereophonic – which features musical compositions written by former Arcade Fire member Will Butler – reigned as the night’s biggest winner with five awards, including best play, while the LaChanze and Angelina Jolie-produced Outsiders won best musical. 

In the two days following Stereophonic’s victory (June 17-18), the cast recording pulled 92,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, posting a whopping 152% increase from just 36,000 streams the Monday-Tuesday prior (June 10-11). Similarly, The Outsiders’ cast recording earned over 546,000 streams during the period of June 17-18, ballooning 90% from around 288,000 streams during the period of June 10-11. 

While Jay-Z has yet to add a Tony to his seemingly endless collection of awards and accolades, the hip-hop legend made a surprise appearance at Sunday night’s telecast to perform “Empire State of Mind” alongside Alicia Keys, whose Hell’s Kitchen musical tied Stereophonic as the night’s most-nominated production (13), ultimately taking home two trophies. “Empire State of Mind” collected over 310,000 streams the day following the Tonys performance (June 17), an 8% boost from the 286,000 streams it earned the Monday prior (June 10). 

Although he’s not outside as often as he used to be, the Tony telecast isn’t the only place the Brooklyn icon has surprised with a performance. Last Wednesday (June 12), Jay popped up for a surprise rendition of “Public Service Announcement” to open up Tom Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame induction ceremony. In the three days immediately following the performance (June 13-15), the 2003 classic pulled in over 225,000 streams, marking a 65% increase from the 137,000 streams it earned the three days prior (June 10-12). – KYLE DENIS

No “Lie,” Tommy Richman Is About to Score Another Chart Hit

Following up an out-of-nowhere smash is always a tall order — especially one as singular and immediately catchy as “Million Dollar Baby,” the falsetto-heavy rhythmic pop single from Virginia singer-rapper Tommy Richman. “Baby” crashed the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 following its April release, thanks in part to snippets of the song going viral on social media; as it stands, the song is the longest-running continuous No. 1 hit on the Billboard TikTok Top 50 chart, where it spends a fifth week in the top spot. “Baby” spends a seventh straight frame in the top 10 of the Hot 100 this week, falling two spots to No. 5 — but before “Baby” even turns two months old, Richman has already released its follow-up, and likely secured himself another Hot 100 entry.

“Devil Is a Lie,” a similarly funk-infused single unveiled last Friday (June 14), has been earning seven-figure streams each day: Over its first four days of release, the track scored 5.37 million U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate, as its daily streaming total has consistently notched a little over 1 million plays and is still growing as of Tuesday (June 18). That total is still a far cry from the red-hot start of “Baby” — which earned a whopping 16.6 million streams in its first four days of release. However, “Lie” should accrue enough chart points to notch a respectable Hot 100 debut next week, and quickly remove Richman from any one-hit-wonder chatter as “Baby” continues its top 10 run. – JASON LIPSHUTZ

310babii Nets Second Dance Hit With “Rock Your Hips” 

Mere months after securing his very first Hot 100 hit with “Soak City (Do It)” (No. 53), Inglewood rapper and recent high school graduate 310babii is eyeing another smash. Once again bolstered by an infectious dance trend, 310babii’s latest hit – which was released in early May, and features OhGeesy and BlueBucksClan — has steadily increased in streams for the past three weeks. 

According to Luminate, “Rock Your Hips” earned over 1.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of June 6-13, marking a 29% increase from the 860,000 streams it collected the week prior (May 31-June 6). Just three weeks ago (May 17-23), “Rock Your Hips” was pulling just over 610,000 streams. 

TikTok has been the biggest source of traction for the song, with the track’s official sound pulling over 54,600 posts – most of which are pegged to a CapCut template that lets users use AI to replicate the dance trend created by user @adoree_stook. On YouTube, the official lyric video has garnered over 300,000 views in less than a month. Between its steady rise and new boost of momentum thanks to Kendrick Lamar’s West Coast-glorifying Pop Out concert – which 310babii performed at — “Rock Your Hips” could end up following Crime Mob’s 2007 hit “Rock Yo Hips” onto the Hot 100 a couple decades later. – KD

Summer “Nights”: Kid LAROI Deep Cut Is Heating Up on Streaming

While The Kid LAROI’s 2023 official debut album The First Time failed to match the chart impact of his breakout 2020 mixtape F*ck Love – peaking at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 and not spawning any singles the size of that set’s “Without You” or “Stay” – the album might not be done on the charts just yet. Deep cut “Nights Like This,” which at 1:27 feels closer to an interlude than a lead single, has been taking off on TikTok recently for its immersive cloud-rap production and hazy vocals, with many users deeming the song an unexpected sound for the singer-rapper. 

In any event, listeners have clearly been falling under the spell of “Nights,” as the song has been rising rapidly on streaming the past month. For the tracking week ending May 23, the song pulled just under 425,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate, but by the week ending June 13, it was up to over 3 million – a three-week gain of 617%. LAROI himself has gotten in on the TikTok fun, captioning a post of him looking stunned at the camera with the tongue-in-cheek caption “I can’t believe Kid Laroi made this song” – though he commented more sincerely underneath the clip, “grateful this song is being discovered genuinely one of my favs #thanks love you all.” – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

Q&A: Talia Kraines, Senior Editor, US Pop at Spotify, on What’s Trending Up in Her World

Spotify recently unveiled its Songs of Summer predictions for 2024. How did that list of songs come together?

Our Songs of Summer predictions were built by our global music editors from many different genres all over the Northern Hemisphere. Our editors identify the songs we feel will excel in the warm, sunny weather, and we also analyze data that shows us our listeners are already loving these songs, and they have potential to grow even more. We also noticed that sounds beyond the Northern Hemisphere, including Afropop and amapiano, continue to make their way up and expand on a larger global scale for our summer, and we’re so excited to see the continued global growth of Tems and Tyla. Few things are more electrifying to a Spotify editor than loving a song and seeing the audience also love that song – that’s why you’ll find both big, obvious songs on the list, as well as some smaller artists that our editors are taking an early bet on.

A small group of editors then finalized the list down to the top 30 – we’ll be tracking throughout the summer and can’t wait to find out what song will win the crown!

What do you think is the most unexpected entry in this year’s shortlist?

I’m personally thrilled to include CYRIL’s “Stumblin’ In” in the list this year. It’s always fascinating when we see songs cross borders at different times and have an extensive lifespan; it’s such a great, holistic example of how editorial at Spotify works. CYRIL is Australian and made a new dance version of Suzi Quatro’s 1978 US & UK hit of the same name, which he released in November 2023. Our dance editors across the world loved the song and included it on local dance lists at the time, but I never would have guessed this song (or the music of Suzi Quatro!) would make this year’s Songs of Summer shortlist.

At the start of 2024, “Stumblin’ In” began to expand beyond Australia and experience global success, especially in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Our European dance editors brought the song back to the attention of the US & global dance team at the end of February, and we began to move the song on our global lists out of just dance, and into pop / hits spaces. Even though it really wasn’t on the radar of US listeners at all, we began testing it in US lists in March, and after seeing success on our platform, it’s grown into a huge hit, been signed to a US label and is now in Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits. It’s a great example of a song that’s had a whole life in Europe, and only now when the summer weather begins to orient US listening more towards dance music, it’s having its US adventure and is a hit all over the world. Definitely an unexpected song of Summer 2024!

Post Malone & Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” is the front-runner on Billboard’s own Song of the Summer chart, spending five weeks atop the Hot 100 to date. Why do you think that song has resonated so well at the beginning of summer?

When two huge superstars like Post Malone and Morgan Wallen come together, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re going to have a massive hit. We always see country music surging on Spotify in the summer, so Posty chose the perfect time for his pivot to country, and did it with a song that sounds warm, breezy and is the perfect soundtrack to rowdy summer nights around a bonfire or out on the town. Post Malone recently performed the song at Spotify House during CMA Fest, and let me tell you, the rest of the weekend was spent with everyone shouting the fun, backing vocal “help!” every two minutes. Utterly catchy and sounds good in almost any summertime situation, no wonder it’s a huge hit. 

An extra element to this story is how it’s really cemented the global growth of country music outside of the U.S. While Australia, Canada and the UK have dipped their toes into country over the last few years, Post Malone, as well as fellow Songs of Summer nominees Shaboozey and Dasha, have seen unprecedented success in our Hot Hits flagships all over the world, including Norway, Italy and Brazil to name a few. Even the UK, often touted as an emerging country export market, has never really had country break through in a way it has this year. 

Fill in the blank: the song featured on Spotify’s predictions list, that you think is going to be much bigger by the end of the summer than it is now, is _______.

“Nasty” by Tinashe – is the summer gonna match her freak? – JL

Season’s Gainings: Watch (and Listen to) the Thrones

At long last, House of the Dragon has returned to HBO. For those of us who got hooked on the Game of Thrones-verse back in the early 2010s, a new season of the show’s prequel series (whose first season came and went a long two years ago) is cause for celebration – and perhaps some commemorative streaming. Composer Ramin Djawadi’s theme to the original Thrones series – which has also been used by Dragon for each of its first two seasons – racked up nearly 51,000 official on-demand U.S. streams combined over this Monday and Tuesday following Sunday’s season premiere, a gain of over 50% from the same period the week before, according to Luminate. Now, let the debates over the show’s revamped credits sequence begin. – AU