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K-Pop Star IU Debuts on Emerging Artists Chart, Thanks to SUGA Collab ‘Eight’

K-pop singer-songwriter IU (real name: Lee Ji-eun) debuts at No. 36 on Billboard's Emerging Artists chart (dated May 16), thanks to her new single "Eight," featuring BTS member SUGA.

K-pop singer-songwriter IU (real name: Lee Ji-eun) debuts at No. 36 on Billboard‘s Emerging Artists chart (dated May 16), thanks to her new single “Eight,” featuring BTS member SUGA.

The track debuts at No. 1 on the World Digital Song Sales chart and No. 13 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales survey with 7,000 downloads sold, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The song marks IU’s first No. 1 on the former tally and her seventh top 10.

The single also earns SUGA his first solo No. 1 on World Digital Song Sales. BTS boasts a record 19 No. 1s on the chart.

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Notably, “Eight” is the sixth song to debut at No. 1 on World Digital Songs this year, after Red Velvet’s “Psycho”; Younha’s “Winter Flower,” featuring RM (also of BTS); BTS’ “Black Swan” and “ON”; and Monsta X’s “From Zero.”

IU has tallied 14 total entries on World Digital Song Sales, starting with “You & I,” which reached No. 3 in 2011.

Here’s a look at all of IU’s World Digital Songs top 10s:

Peak Position, Title
No. 1, “Eight,” feat. SUGA
No. 3, “You & I”
No. 4, “Twenty-Three”
No. 4, “Palette,” feat. G-Dragon
No. 5, “Bbibbi”
No. 9, “Love Poem”
No. 10, “Blueming”

IU has additionally sent six titles onto the World Albums chart, with her 2017 studio set Palette spending a week at No. 1.

The Emerging Artists chart ranks the most popular developing artists of the week, using the same formula as the all-encompassing Billboard Artist 100, which measures artist activity across multiple Billboard charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200 and the Social 50. (The Artist 100 lists the most popular acts, overall, each week.) However, the Emerging Artists chart excludes acts that have notched a top 25 entry on either the Hot 100 or Billboard 200, as well as artists that have achieved two or more top 10s on Billboard’s “Hot” song genre charts and/or consumption-based “Top” album genre rankings.

Check out this week’s full Emerging Artists chart here.