Bob Marley’s Legend and Rihanna’s Anti Become the Longest-Charting Albums by a Black Male and Female Artist in Billboard 200 History

Bob Marley and Rihanna continue to etch their names deeper into Billboard history as the two longest-charting Black male and female artists on the Billboard 200. Marley’s Island Records compilation Legend has now reached an astounding 907 weeks on the chart, while Rihanna’s acclaimed studio album ANTI celebrates an impressive 500-week run for the week ending December 6.

Legend is a greatest hits compilation by Bob Marley and the Wailers, released on 7 May 1984 by Island Records as the first major retrospective issued after Marley’s death.

it was the product of deep research according to Chris Blackwell, Island’s founder and remains the definitive collection of his work— based on his happier themed songs to target the US market.

Compiling recordings from 1972 to 1983, the album was assembled with the intention of presenting a broad, accessible portrait of Marley’s music, emphasizing his melodic, spiritual, and socially warm themes rather than the more overtly political edge found in earlier Wailers material. In its original vinyl form, Legend collected all ten of Marley’s UK Top 40 singles, including enduring classics such as “Is This Love,” “Three Little Birds,” “Could You Be Loved,” and “Redemption Song,” along with three tracks recorded with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston—“Stir It Up,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” and “Get Up, Stand Up.” Although the set was built from previously issued songs, its sequencing and presentation, overseen by Island executives including Chris Blackwell, helped reframe Marley as a universal cultural figure, introducing reggae to audiences that had never engaged with the genre before.

Neville Garrick holds the cover for Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley And The Wailers album cover in 2014, the 30th anniversary of the album’s release.

Over time, it became the best-selling reggae album of all time, surpassing 18 million copies in the United States, moving over 3.3 million copies in the United Kingdom, and achieving an estimated 25 million global sales, a number that continues to rise as the album’s streaming presence expands. In 2003, and again in the 2012 revision, Rolling Stone ranked Legend at No. 46 on its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” cementing its status as not only Marley’s most widely-known release but one of the most celebrated albums in modern music.

Commercially, Legend has displayed a longevity almost unmatched in chart history. In the United States, the album has become a permanent resident of the Billboard 200, accumulating 915 nonconsecutive weeks on the chart as of December 2025, making it the second-longest-charting album in Billboard history—surpassed only by Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. When counting both the Billboard 200 and Catalog Albums charts, Legend has registered 2,165 weeks, a run nearly unparalleled across any genre. It has also enjoyed extraordinary endurance in the United Kingdom, where it has spent 1,214 weeks in the Top 100 by December 2025, ranking third all-time in UK chart longevity. With 15× Platinum certification in the UK and 18× Platinum status in the United States, the album continues to maintain historic sales benchmarks decades after its release.

Across its many formats, Legend has undergone several notable reissues. The original cassette added “Punky Reggae Party” and “Easy Skanking,” while a second-generation Tuff Gong compact disc in 1990 restored album-length versions rather than single edits. A remastered edition arrived on 12 February 2002, pairing the 14-track album-length version with a bonus disc of 1984 remixes designed for club and dub contexts. In 2004, a deluxe edition combined the album with a DVD under Island’s “Sound + Vision” series. Later, in 2012, high-resolution audio versions were made available through HDtracks, and the album was even introduced into digital gaming culture when most tracks became downloadable content for Rock Band. A 30th-anniversary edition followed in 2014, issued as tri-color vinyl and a CD/Blu-ray set featuring alternate studio takes.

Photo: Getty Images

On the other hand, Anti is the eighth studio album by Barbadian singer Rihanna, released on January 28, 2016, through Roc Nation and her own label Westbury Road after departing Def Jam, where all seven of her previous albums had been issued. Recording took place between April 2014 and January 2016 across studios in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Santa Monica and Toronto. Conceived during a tumultuous creative period, the album marked a radical shift away from the radio-dominant pop and EDM sound that had previously defined her career. Instead, Anti embraced a moody, atmospheric palette shaped by lo-fi textures, distorted vocals, trap-leaning production, dancehall rhythms, psychedelic soul, and alternative R&B. Rihanna served as executive producer and worked with an extensive roster including Jeff Bhasker, Boi-1da, DJ Mustard, Hit-Boy, Timbaland, No I.D., and Brian Kennedy, while SZA and Drake contributed guest vocals. Lyrically, the album explores emotional vulnerability, desire, rejection, independence, and the complexities of intimacy, reflecting Rihanna’s desire for authenticity and artistic longevity rather than hit-driven singles.

The album’s release followed a long, highly publicized promotional campaign beginning in summer 2014, including the #R8 teaser era, a Dior campaign featuring “Goodnight Gotham,” and an elaborate ANTIdiaRy digital storytelling project funded by a $25 million partnership with Samsung. Rihanna unveiled the album’s striking Roy Nachum–designed cover on October 7, 2015, featuring a childhood photograph partially obscured by a gold crown and a poem in braille written with Chloe Mitchell. Anti was accidentally leaked on Tidal on January 27, 2016, after which one million Samsung-sponsored free downloads were made available before the album was properly released worldwide.

Four singles supported the album, beginning with “Work” (featuring Drake) released January 27, 2016, which debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose to No. 1, becoming Rihanna’s fourteenth U.S. chart-topper. It also made her the fastest artist in history to accumulate 27 top-ten hits. On March 30, 2016, Rihanna released “Kiss It Better”and “Needed Me” simultaneously; the latter became a major hit, reaching the Hot 100 top ten and eventually becoming her longest-charting single at the time. The final single, “Love on the Brain,” released September 27, 2016, became a sleeper success, peaking at No. 5 in the U.S., reinforcing the album’s reputation for slow-burn longevity.

Commercially, Anti became one of Rihanna’s most enduring projects. Despite confusion around Samsung-funded downloads, the album debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 for the week ending February 13, 2016, and climbed to No. 1 the following week, eventually spending two nonconsecutive weeks at the top. It also hit No. 1 in Canada and Norway, and peaked at No. 7 in the United Kingdom, where it topped the UK R&B chart. In the U.S., the RIAA certified Anti platinum just two days after release, and it has since grown to six-times platinum. The album became the first by a Black woman to spend 300 weeks on the Billboard 200 (2022), later crossing 400 weeks, and by December 2025 it became the first album by a Black female artist to reach 500 weeks, ranking as the fourth-longest-charting female album in Billboard history. Internationally, it earned multi-platinum certifications in countries including France, Denmark, New Zealand, Belgium, Poland, Canada, and the UK. In 2016 it was also the most-streamed album by a female artist on Spotify, and according to IFPI it surpassed one million global sales in its release year.