Yung Lean Lands First Lead-Artist Hot 100 Hit With “Storm II”

Yung Lean earned his first Billboard Hot 100 entry as a lead artist after his GENER8ION collaboration “Storm II” found a new audience at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The song entered at No. 93 on the October 17 chart. It’s also GENER8ION’s first Hot 100 appearance, the French project that pairs producer Surkin with filmmaker Romain Gavras.

Lean’s only previous Hot 100 credit came with Dave Chappelle on Travis Scott’s “Parasail,” which reached No. 53 in 2023. “Storm II” arrived in April through Iconoclast Music.

The VMAs gave that months-old track a much larger U.S. audience. It drew 3.1 million chart-eligible streams during October 2–8, up 30% from the week before, Billboard reported.

The first tracking week to include the September 27 performance had already brought a 369% increase, lifting streams from 508,000 to 2.4 million.

Behind those numbers is a film built around Lean’s turn as a school bully. Its early scenes follow his abuse of other students before a class photo gives way to a group dance. A large group of boys in school uniforms moves together through a routine created by choreographer Damien Jalet.

That combination took shape while the song itself was still being made. Surkin and Gavras developed the sound and the film together, with Lean joining a project that called for both his voice and his acting.

“We brought him to the studio and said to him what we were thinking: a drunk hooligan singing an ABBA song,” Surkin told Wallpaper in June.

Gavras had already cast Lean in his film Sacrifice when the pair began shaping “Storm.” Their work on the movie helped make the rapper a natural choice for the video’s central role. Recording sessions moved from Paris to Sweden, and the team finished the music on the video set in Belgium.

The dance required its own long preparation. Gavras wanted young performers who would not immediately look like trained dancers, making the routine a surprise. Jalet held auditions and built the choreography with small groups before expanding it to the larger cast.

“Storm II” also climbs to No. 2 in its fourth week on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.