Swizz Beatz and Timbaland have plenty to celebrate. The Verzuz co-creators released the official viewership numbers for the Jeezy and Gucci Mane battle livestream that took place on Thursday (Nov. 19) and it has surpassed all of the previous battles the virtual series has held so far.
The two Atlanta rappers kicked off season 2 of the series and their reunion brought in a total of 9.1 million viewers, breaking the “all-time livestream viewership record.” The Verzuz team revealed the figures on Saturday (Nov. 21) thanking fans for their support—including those who gathered in large crowds to watch the “legendary showdown” together.
“WOW. The numbers are officially in, and a huge thanks to all of you who tuned in as we broke our all-time livestream viewership record on Thursday night with the first episode of season two of Verzuz,” they captioned the post on Instagram. “On a minimum level, 9.1 MILLION people watched this epic, legendary showdown between @jeezy and @laflare1017 (As we saw across the country, there was a new phenomenon of Verzuz viewing parties, so that figure is not including those who gathered in large numbers together.”
The battle brought in a total of 5.5 viewers on Instagram throughout the length of the episode, 2.3 million viewers on Apple Music, and more than 1.3 million on unofficial YouTube streams and on Facebook. The show also inspired more than 3.2 million tweets from fans worldwide.
According to the post, these numbers also put Verzuz ahead in popularity and viewership numbers of some of music’s biggest television shows, including the MTV Video Music Awards, the Billboard Awards, the Latin Grammy’s and others—making it music’s second biggest show after the Grammys.
“This viewership number from last night actually makes Verzuz bigger in ratings than the MTV VMA’s, NBC’s The Voice, the Billboard Awards, the CMA’s, the Latin Grammy’s, Dancing With The Stars or The Masked Singer respectively on any given night for those primetime shows this year,” the caption reads. “OUR culture has made us the top show in the world for music outside of The Grammy’s. Thank you infinitely!”
The Brandy and Monica Verzuz that took place in September previously held the crown as the most-watched in the history of the series with more than six million viewers. Verzuz shared a that the artists from their two highest-viewed battles all hailed from the same city. “Fun fact: The TOP 2 highest-streamed #VERZUZ battles have been in Atlanta,” a message read on the show’s official Twitter account.
Both the R&B singers and the two rappers were able to put their differences and feuds aside to come together to celebrate their biggest hits in front of millions of people, uniting to provide fans with much needed entertainment.