Lin-Manuel Miranda's new charity single "Almost Like Praying," featuring Artists for Puerto Rico, should soar in at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart dated Oct. 28, with more than 100,000 downloads sold in the tracking week ending Oct. 13, based on preliminary data.
Such a strong total should drive the song's debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated Oct. 28) in the top 40, and perhaps top 25. Highlights of next week's Hot 100, which blends streaming, airplay and sales data, according to Nielsen Music, will post on Billboard.com Monday (Oct. 16), with all charts updating Oct. 17.
Miranda is also in line for his first top 40 hit on the Hot 100 with "Almost." He previously reached the chart with two titles in 2016: "Love Make the World Go Round," with Jennifer Lopez (No. 72), and "We Know the Way," with Opetaia Foa'i(No. 93), the latter song from the Disney movie Moana. The tracks reached Nos. 9 and 38, respectively, on Digital Song Sales.
Miranda has also charted on the Hot 100 as the writer of three other Moanaentries, all of which peaked earlier in 2017: Auli'i Cravalho and Alessia Cara's versions of "How Far I'll Go," which reached Nos. 41 and 56, respectively, and Dwayne Johnson's "You're Welcome" (No. 65).
The composer, playwright and actor is perhaps best known as the creator and star of Hamilton, with the Broadway cast recording Hamilton: An American Musicalhaving spent 101 weeks at No. 1 to date on the Cast Albums chart.
"Almost," sung primarily in Spanish, would additionally complete the first set of back-to-back Latin music No. 1s on Digital Song Sales, as current champ J Balvinand Willy William's "Mi Gente," featuring Beyonce, bounded 34-1 on the Oct. 21 chart (79,000, up 436 percent), following the release of its Beyonce remix.
Among the Artists for Puerto Rico on "Almost" are Marc Anthony, Camila Cabello, Gloria Estefan, Luis Fonsi and Lopez. Proceeds from the song will benefit The Hispanic Federation's Unidos Disaster Relief Fund.
Miranda wrote the song, which contains elements of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's "Maria," from West Side Story.
"I wrote this song the day after the hurricane hit Puerto Rico," Miranda told Billboard. "We realized this storm was the worst storm to hit the island in modern history, and its name was Maria; that's the name of my favorite song from West Side Story. So, I thought, how can I flip that negative connotation into something [positive] for Puerto Rico?"
