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Brandy and Monica earned themselves over 20 million song streams in the three days following their recent VERZUZ battle.
On Tuesday (September 1), the pair went head-to-head in the latest edition of Swizz Beatz and Timbaland‘s VERZUZ series, which pits producers, songwriters and artists against each other in a rap battle style format on Instagram Live and Apple Music.
At its peak, Brandy and Monica’s broadcast drew 1.2 million simultaneous viewers, the highest recorded among the series’ clashes thus far.
Now, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data (via Billboard), the R&B hitmakers combined for a total 21.9 million US on-demand streams for their song catalogs from August 31 through September 2, a period including the day of the battle and two days after of residual fan activity.
Comparing it to 6.3 million US streams in three days leading up to the VERZUZ, their catalogues surged by 248%.
Monica’s music accounted for 11.2 million plays, while Brandy’s songs clocked in at 10.9 million streams.
Using the battle to launch her new single ‘Trenches’ with Lil Baby, Monica pulled in 1.2 million US streams in its first three days.
Her next highest totals came from ‘So Gone’ (840,000), and a trio of tunes from her 1995 debut album, ‘Miss Thang’: ‘Why I Love You So Much’ (764,000), ‘Don’t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)’ (518,000) and ‘Before You Walk Out Of My Life’ (499,000).
For Brandy, her new single ‘Borderline’, taken from her new album ‘B7’, drew 571,000 streams from August 31-September 2, up 87% from 305,000 in the three days prior to the event.
Following this, Brandy’s top five streamed songs during the period were ‘Have You Ever’ (555,000), ‘I Wanna Be Down’ (496,000), ‘Almost Doesn’t Count’ (428,000) and ‘Angel In Disguise’ (408,000).
The pair’s smash collaboration, ‘The Boy In Mine’, which closed the nearly three-hour battle, registered 899,000 US streams over the three-day period, up 152% from 356,000 in the three days preceding their showdown.
Last month, Rick Ross shared his unreleased verse from Kanye West’s ‘Famous’ during his VERZUZ battle with 2 Chainz.
The song, which appeared on West’s 2016 album ‘The Life Of Pablo’ and caused a lot of controversy due to its Taylor Swift reference, was originally released with verses from West, a hook by Rihanna, and background vocals from Swizz Beatz.
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