Jelly Roll Keeps Winning After CMT Music Awards With Big ‘Son of a Sinner’ and ‘Need a Favor’ Gains

5 April, 2023

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.

This week: a rising star’s breakout night at the CMT Music Awards leads to major sales and streams spikes, a couple late-20th-century favorites get the Ted Lasso bump and a genre-blending teenage singer-songwriter officially becomes a TikTok phenomenon.

Jelly Roll on a… Roll, After CMT Music Awards Bump

Unquestionably one of the biggest winners at the CMT Music Awards on Sunday night (April 2) was genre-blurring country singer-songwriter-rapper Jelly Roll. Not only did the artist born Jason DeFord take home three trophies on the evening — for digital-first performance of the year, male breakthrough video of the year and male video of the year, all for breakout hit “Son of a Sinner” — but he also gave one of the night’s most arresting performances (of the gospel-touched “Need a Favor”), and generally charmed folks in the crowd and at home with his exuberance and sincerity.

Unsurprisingly, both “Sinner” and “Favor” have reaped the benefits from Jelly Roll’s big evening in Austin. “Sinner,” which peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 last October, notched 950,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on April 3 (the day after the awards) — a 27% rise over his April 2 tally, according to Luminate — and also sold a combined 3,300 copies over April 2-3, a 740% gain over his combined total the previous two days. “Favor,” which has yet to reach the Hot 100 but ranks No. 32 on Country Airplay chart this week, saw even greater gains — rising 49% in streams to 640,000 on April 3 and selling over 5,500 between April 2-3, up 848% from the two prior days combined.

Award shows don’t always have the commercial impact in 2023 that they might have enjoyed in earlier decades, but if Jelly Roll’s upcoming project — Whisitt Chapel, currently scheduled for release this June on BBR Music Group — does even better than his last (2021’s Ballads of the Broken), you can likely point to these CMT Awards as a big reason why. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

‘Ted Lasso’ Scores Goals for Leonard Cohen & Fastball

The latest episode of Ted Lasso not only led kicked off a week of prestige TV shows utilizing Leonard Cohen songs to make dramatic statements (with Succession following a few days later), but happily led to a surge in streams for a late-‘90s alt-rock jam as well. When “4-5-1,” the third episode of the Apple TV+ soccer dramedy’s third and final season, premiered last Wednesday (Mar. 29), Fastball’s 1999 single “Out of My Head” plays over the beginning as Colin (Billy Harris) wakes up; later, the episode concludes when Ted (Jason Sudeikis) makes a shocking realization about his ex-wife as Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” appropriately plays over the credits.

The soundtrack bookends proved effective: “Out of My Head” rose 63% in daily U.S. official on-demand streams to 30,000 between the day before the episode’s premiere date and the following day, according to Luminate, while “Everybody Knows” jumped 139% in streams to over 15,000 over the same time period. Both streaming totals have fallen back down a bit in the days since, but considering that the new season of Ted Lasso has already featured tunes from Lizzo, Bob Dylan, Beyoncé and Eric B. & Rakim, expect more synchs from the new season to register streaming bumps in the coming weeks. – JASON LIPSHUTZ

Teenage Singer-Songwriter Kanii ‘Know’s He’s Got a Breakout Hit

Washington, D.C. bedroom producer Kanii is just 17 years old, but is already establishing himself as an artist to watch. With nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok, he went viral and racked up millions of streams last year for “Attachment,” featuring co-producer Bossa, which laid a yearning vocal over a clubbier spin on Rihanna and Drake’s 2016 Hot 100-topper “Work.” That song’s success led to Kanii signing with Masked Records, a joint venture with Warner — but it looks like it might just be the opening act for his real breakout, with this year’s “I Know.”

Released in early March, the woozy “I Know” — part R&B ballad, part dancefloor anthem — was already off to a strong start, but absolutely exploded over TikTok with a remix from fellow teen collaborator pr1isvx, whose amped-up Jersey edit of the song was officially picked up by Masked/Warner. In the three full weeks of the song’s release, it’s bound from 81,000 official on-demand U.S. streams (for the tracking week ending March 16) to over 5.8 million (for the week ending March 30) — a 7,122% gain, according to Luminate — and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, as the song potentially sets its sights on a Hot 100 debut in the weeks to come. — AU