Mary J. Blige’s ‘Breathing’ Debuts on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay Chart
Mary J. Blige has earned another entry on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart with “Breathing” featuring Fabolous.
The S. Dot-produced song debuts at No. 17 this week on the chart, which is currently led by Chris Brown‘s “Sensational,” featuring Davido and Lojay.
The hip-hop soul track becomes Blige’s 62nd entry on the airplay chart that launched in September 1993. It also marks her third-highest debut appearance, following “Thick of It” at No. 17 in October 2016 and “Whole Damn Year” at No. 15 in October 2014, respectively.
Per Billboard, the Adult R&B Airplay chart highlights the week’s most popular songs ranked by Adult R&B radio airplay detections, as measured by Mediabase and provided by Luminate.
Blige has achieved eight No.1s on the chart, with “Still Believe in Love” featuring Vado being her most recent. It remained at the top for eight consecutive weeks.
At R&B radio, monitored by Mediabase, “Breathing” is now at No. 17, marking a seven-spot jump from last week.
“Breathing” is Blige’s first song release of 2024 and is credited as the lead single from her upcoming 15th album, set to arrive later this fall.
“The story behind the track is what I’m doing finally, which is living, breathing, enjoying my life and celebrating the happiness and freedom I have that life brings,” Blige explained the meaning behind her new single. “I finally get to exhale and inhale and then exhale and enjoy life, enjoy love.”
Blige’s upcoming album has yet to be titled or given an official release date. However, she did explain the project’s thematic direction.
“The overall theme is enjoying life and understanding that, again, life is what inspires me, whether I take the good with the bad. I look at every lesson as a blessing and I understand that I’m not the only one on the earth going through things. I celebrate my triumph, and I work through my hard times,” Blige said.
“So, the album is going to be fun in that perspective. There’ll be things that are real and serious, but you’ll be able to dance to it or sing to it. There’s a bunch of different things — ballads, world music. There’s some good sh*t on here.”
Blige’s previous album, Good Morning Gorgeous, was released in 2022 in tandem with her co-headlining Super Bowl performance.
The album debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 and included the title track produced by H.E.R. and D’Mile, as well as the track “Amazing” featuring and produced by DJ Khaled.
Later in 2022, Blige released Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe), an expanded edition of her February 2022 release. The album was later nominated for Best R&B Album and Album of the Year at the 65th Grammy Awards.
On Oct. 19, Blige will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul is set to perform at the event.
Stream Mary J. Blige’s new song “Breathing” featuring Fabolous below.