NAV released Bad Habits, his second studio album, on March 22, 2019, through XO Records and Republic Records. The NAV Bad Habits album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Canadian Albums chart, his first chart topper on both, and it remains the commercial peak that every later NAV album is measured against.
The date honesty matters with this one. Bad Habits is a 2019 catalogue album, not a new release, and this deep dive treats it that way: as the week a Toronto artist who had been building through mixtapes took the biggest album chart in the world, with the receipts still on the record. Executive produced by The Weeknd, his XO label head, it is the album where the XO system and NAV’s own production circle fully locked in.
NAV Bad Habits Album By The Numbers
Billboard’s first week accounting is specific. Bad Habits earned 82,000 equivalent album units in the week ending March 28, 2019, of which 24,000 were album sales and 57,000 were streaming equivalent units, equating to 79.08 million on demand audio streams for the album’s songs, the most streamed album of its week. The April 6 dated chart made it official: the Toronto born rapper, born Navraj Singh Goraya and signed to The Weeknd’s XO imprint in 2017, had his first No. 1.
The climb behind it was steady, which is why the peak held meaning. His self titled mixtape had reached No. 24 on the Billboard 200 in 2017, the Perfect Timing collaboration with Metro Boomin reached No. 13 that same year, and his debut studio album Reckless debuted and peaked at No. 8 in June 2018. Three chart entries, each higher than the last, and then the top. The week before the album, his manager Cash had released the unofficial Brown Boy EP on Audiomack, the cover art arrived March 19 and the tracklist on March 21, so Bad Habits landed on an audience that had been primed for exactly seven days.
The Tracklist And The Singles Run
The standard album runs sixteen tracks: “To My Grave,” “I’m Ready,” “Taking Chances,” “Tap” featuring Meek Mill, “Tension,” “Price on My Head” featuring The Weeknd, “Ralo,” “Tussin” featuring Young Thug, “Snap,” “Hold Your Breath” featuring Gunna, “Why You Crying Mama,” “Time Piece” featuring Lil Durk, “Dior Runners,” “Vicodin,” “Stuck With Me” and “Know Me.” NAV produces or co-produces much of the record himself, alongside Money Musik and Trouble Trouble, which keeps the sound in one family even as the guest list rotates.
The singles were sequenced like a campaign. “Know Me,” the lead single, arrived November 2, 2018, with a David Camarena directed video on November 8, and reached No. 63 on the Canadian Hot 100. “Price on My Head,” the video above, followed as the second single on March 26, 2019, produced by Derek Wise of 88GLAM and AlexOnWeed, peaking at No. 18 in Canada and No. 72 on the Hot 100 and since certified double platinum in Canada; its Kid. Studio directed video, released the same day, sets an apocalyptic Toronto on fire around its two hometown artists. “Tap” featuring Meek Mill closed the run as the third single in May 2019. The deluxe edition, also released March 26, added guest appearances from Future and 88GLAM and folded in the Brown Boy songs.
The Habits Track That Almost Was
The album’s most famous absence explains its title. A track called “Habits,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert, was planned for the album and held off it when Uzi’s verse could not be cleared, and NAV addressed it directly on Instagram at the time:
“Unfortunately DJ Drama and Don Cannon won’t clear his verse legally.”
The deluxe edition carried a solo version of “Habits” instead, with NAV recording the missing verse’s place himself. It is a revealing footnote: the title track of the album’s whole concept exists because of a clearance wall, and the workaround, one artist covering both parts, is the most NAV solution on the record. Among canadian hip hop artists of his era, his brand was always self sufficiency, a producer first who could fill gaps in his own sessions.
What Bad Habits Set Up
The peak was not a one off. His next album, Good Intentions, released May 8, 2020, also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, which turned the Bad Habits week from a surprise into a pattern: two consecutive chart topping albums from a Rexdale raised, Toronto based artist on a Toronto founded label. Played today, Bad Habits is the hinge of the catalogue, the point where the mixtape run, the Metro Boomin collaboration and the Reckless top ten all converted into the biggest result of his career, with “Price on My Head” as its hometown centrepiece.
