In case you’ve missed it, there’s a new trend taking over social media – the #MannequinChallenge has stormed the internet over the past number of weeks.
The challenge is simple: every participant either stands, sits or contorts themselves in a still position to resemble a mannequin.
Everyone has done one, from high school students to stadiums full of sports fans, from international football teams to household pets, from Beyoncé to Hillary Clinton ahead of the US presidential elections, even original Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney, took part in the challenge, and Rae Sremmurd – comprised of Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi – was no exception.
On Nov. 4, the duo released their take of the challenge, commanding everybody at their show to freeze until the initial downbeat of “Black Beatles.” Many praised the interpretation, thus inspiring a slew of renditions that use “Black Beatles” as the backing track. The duo’s capitalization on the trend was an impulsive decision and now, the inclusion of their latest single “Black Beatles” has become the go-to background music for the viral video challenge globally.
#Mannequinchallenge live ❄️ pic.twitter.com/y0aUTIfyTn
— Swae Lee Lee Swae (@iHipsterLee) November 4, 2016
Love those Black Beatles #MannequinChallenge pic.twitter.com/aAu9umHKI7
— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) November 10, 2016
"Black Beatles," shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week as the newly-crowned top-selling and most-streamed song of the week. It vaults 16-1 on the Digital Song Sales chart, up 320% to 144,000 downloads sold, according to Nielsen Music, and 5-1 on Streaming Songs (43.3 million U.S. streams, up 122%). Of its streams for the week, 20.8 million are from YouTube plays and 12.1 million are from Spotify clicks.
The song has been growing at an incredible rate over the last month, but in the last week, it went from #40 on the Global Spotify chart to #1 with over 2.8 million streams a day!
The video has almost 70 million views to date! Watch it now....
