J. Cole Leads Billboard Artist 100 Chart for First Time

J. Cole is the top musical act in the U.S., soaring from No. 19 to No. 1 for his first week atop the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Dec. 31).

The Artist 100 measures artist activity across Billboard's most influential charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Top Album Sales and the Social 50. The Artist 100 (which launched in July 2014) blends data measuring album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.

Cole tops the Artist 100 after previously reaching No. 2 on Dec. 27, 2014, when his last studio LP, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, debuted atop the Billboard 200 (with 375,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music) and Top Album Sales (354,000 copies sold). He crowns the Artist 100 as new album 4 Your Eyez Only bows atop the tallies with 492,000 and 363,000, respectively.

Album sales account for the greatest share of Cole's Artist 100 chart points (53 percent), followed by streaming (33 percent). As previously reported, Cole charts all 10 songs from the new album (and 12 total) on the Hot 100, led by "Deja Vu," which debuts at No. 7, marking his first Hot 100 top 10.

Rounding out the Artist 100's top five, Pentatonix holds at its No. 2 high, The Weeknd drops to No. 3 after 10 (nonconsecutive) weeks at No. 1 and Bruno Mars (3-4) and Drake (4-5) each drop a notch.