Stormzy And Chase & Status Hit UK No 1 With ‘Backbone’
Stormzy and Chase & Status’ first collaboration, Backbone, has debuted at No 1 on the Official UK Singles Chart.
Backbone ended the week as the most-streamed track in the country over the last seven days with 6.4 million streams.
It has become Stormzy’s fourth No 1 1, following Vossi Bop (2019), Take Me Back To London with Ed Sheeran (2019) and Own It with Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy (2020).
Chase & Status told Official Charts: “We knew that connecting with Stormzy was going to create something special, but we didn’t expect a KO reaction like this. To see him running out at our show at The Milton Keynes Bowl, in his best man’s suit; straight from a wedding and in front of 45,000 people was insane! One of the greatest British MCs to ever do it, spitting over DnB & for it to go straight into Number 1? It couldn’t get any better for us.”
Backbone has been highly anticipated since Stormzy made a surprise appearance to perform the track with Chase & Status during their recent Ushuaïa Ibiza takeover. It was first debuted live during the band’s Coachella set earlier this year.
“We are so gassed to work with the legend that is Stormzy,” said Chase & Status when the track as announced. “We’ve always wanted to bring his energy into our world and are so excited for the fans to hear this collaboration.”
Back in June, Stormzy revealed to US rapper Vince Staples that he’s working on new material. “Since the last album [2022’s This Is What I Mean’,” Stormzy said, “this has been the first time in my whole career where I’ve just made music without thinking, ‘Oh, I’m making an album’. For the past three albums, and even before that, music was a very clinical thing for me.
“You know when artists say, ‘I gotta go studio and get this off my chest’? I never related to that. I thought: ‘I’m alright – I talk to one of the mandem [laughs].’ Studio, for me, and making music was extremely intentional. It was always very album-focused. For the past two years, I’ve just been creating.”