Almost three billion people have watched the video of Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth performing “See You Again,” making it the most watched video ever in the history of YouTube as of Tuesday this week, overtaking the catchy song “Gangman Style” by Korean artist Psy.
You can take from that information whatever you want, but for many KTRH listeners, a likely response may be a raised eyebrow and “who?”
Many of us, perhaps due to age, aren’t intimately familiar with the works of Wiz Khalifa, who became the artist with the longest-running rap number-one hit in the country following the tune’s release, has the record for the number one most listened to track in a single day on Spotify, and a number of other records. The rapper, actor and songwriter began his career in 2006, but really took off after producers of the movie Furious 7 commissioned a song to commemorate star Paul Walker and his untimely death and Khalifa did lead vocals. It was featured on the soundtrack and included with the credits at the end of the movie. Charlie Puth was in on the ground floor and contributed vocals for the song’s hook, later doing a solo version of the song for his debut “Nine Track Mind” album. His version also became a huge hit.
“Gangman Style” had been the most watched video on YouTube for five years, the last two of which “See You Again” was racking up the clicks and gaining ground. This week the video reached 2.894 billion views and claimed the number one slot.
The Top 7 most viewed videos now are:
1) “See You Again” — Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth
2) “Gangnam Style” — Psy
3) “Sorry” — Justin Bieber
4) “Uptown Funk” — Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars
5) “Despacito” — Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee
6) “Masha and the Bear” — (a movie)
7) “Shake It Off” — Taylor Swift