Rumi Carter Makes History With Her Billboard Hot 100 Debut

Not only is Rumi Carter officially a Billboard-charting artist, but she is also the latest member of the Carter family to make history.

On Monday (April 8), Billboard reported that “PROTECTOR,” Bey and Rumi’s duet from COWBOY CARTER debuted at No. 42 on the Hot 100. This makes Beyoncé and Jay-Z‘s daughter the youngest female artist to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 at only six years old—a record that was previously held by her older sister, Blue Ivy.

Blue made her debut in 2019 at seven years old with her feature on Beyoncé, SAINt JHN, and Wizkid’s “BROWN SKIN GIRL” from The Lion King: The Gift. The visual for the single earned Blue her first Grammy. The now 12-year-old still holds the record as the youngest artist to ever appear on any Billboard chart after appearing as a guest artist on Hov’s “Glory.”

“PROTECTOR“—or the “lullaby” as Rumi affectionately calls it—earned over 11 million streams during its first week, per Luminate. COWBOY CARTER debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Top Country Albums, and Americana/Folk Albums charts. It also made Bey the first Black woman to dominate the Top Country Albums chart.

Despite the Houston native stating that her latest LP isn’t a country album, she revealed in a statement ahead of its release, “My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.

“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”