J. Cole's 'KOD' tops podium for most first-day Apple Music streams at 64.5M

Rap star J. Cole has reportedly smashed the Apple Music record for streams in a single day, thanks to his new album, "KOD."

The album managed about 64.5 million streams in its first 24 hours, or 60 percent of all streams of the record during the period, Apple told The Verge. Narrowed down to the U.S. the album's share was said to be even higher at 66 percent.

The previous Apple Music champion was Drake's "Views," now in second with a gap of almost 1 million streams.

Those figures may be disproportionate to Apple's share of the streaming market, since the company has somewhere north of 40 million subscribers. Its chief rival, Spotify, has over 159 million listeners, 71 million of those on Premium.

Apple has placed a heavy emphasis on rap, hip-hop, and R&B artists however, and both Apple Music and those genres enjoy their strongest popularity in the large U.S. market. Spotify originated in Sweden and is typically more genre-neutral, even if its curated "RapCaviar" playlist is one of its best known.

The latter service hasn't announced any formal numbers for "KOD." Chart data suggests that it hit at least 36 million U.S. streams, and presumably more in Canada, Mexico, and overseas.

Apple and Spotify recently engaged in a spat over the numbers from the latest Weeknd EP. Apple bragged about achieving 26 million streams during the first day, which initially seemed to trump other services. Later though Spotify said it had hit 29 million.