It’s been six years since Migos released their debut mixtape Juug Season on August 25, 2011. The Atlanta trio now has the No. 1 song in the country with the Metro Boomin-produced and Lil Uzi Vert-assisted “Bad And Boujee” and their sophomore album C U L T U R E is officially out today. The Migos have, in a sense, dominated culture over the last few weeks if not months. Even Donald Glover shouted them out during his Golden Globes acceptance speech this month.

Migos have grabbed headlines recently but the last few years haven’t exactly been kind to Offset, Takeoff, and Quavo. Genius data shows the group’s popularity waned slowly over the the last two years, bottoming out in June 2016, and then rebounding dramatically by the end of the year—mostly thanks to the success of “Bad And Boujee.”

The three MCs have been bubbling in Atlanta since they started recording music back in 2009, but Drake’s 2013 remix of “Versace” helped them break through to the mainstream with somewhat viral success. “Versace” quickly became a cultural phenomenon despite only peaking at No. 99 on the Hot 100. Soon enough, the staccato flows and repetitive choruses of songs like “Hannah Montana” and “China Town” started showing up in rap music across the spectrum. Even conscious rappers started biting Migos—you can hear their triplet flows on tracks like Ab-Soul’s “These Days” or J. Cole’s verse on the remix of Justin Timberlake’s “TKO.”

Migos soaked up all the attention; their breakout mixtape Young Rich Niggas averaged a solid 83,883 page views on Genius—meaning the mixtape’s song pages were viewed about 83,000 times each—and hit almost half a million DatPiff downloads. YouTube helped tracks like “Hannah Montana” (10.8 million views), “China Town” (9.4 million views), and “Bando” (8.5 million views) become viral hits without even touching the Hot 100 chart.

Detractors thought their flame would burn out quickly, but the group’s miraculous run continued into 2014 with the release of their mixtape No Label 2 that February. Migos scored their biggest hits since “Versace” with “Fight Night” and “Handsome and Wealthy,” which racked up half a million Genius page views each and respectively peaked at No. 69 and 79 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Billboard’s 2014 rule change—which incorporated streaming data into chart positions for the first time—helped these songs chart much higher than “Versace.” No Label 2 quickly became the Atlanta trio’s most popular mixtape at the time. It hit 780,000 downloads on DatPiff and averaged 98,990 Genius pageviews for all songs across the mixtape.

From April 2014 through May 2015 , Migos released a record amount of music. They dropped Streets On Lock 3, Rich Nigga Timeline, Migo Lingo and Still On Lock in under a year, but the projects failed to produce any hits from the 78 total songs. Only Rich Nigga Timeline surpassed 200,000 DatPiff downloads (compared to nearly 800,000 for No Label 2), and none managed even half of No Label 2’s 98,990 average Genius pageviews. By summer 2015, the Migos over-saturation was in full effect.

Then came the disastrous release of their debut album Young Rich Nation in August 2015. After several delays and a title change, the album ended up only moving 15,000 units in its first week. This resulted in an embarrassing No. 2 finish behind Lil Dicky’s album Professional Rapper on Billboard’s Hot Rap Albums chart. “Pipe It Up” ended up with almost as many YouTube views as “Fight Night,” but it never charted on the Hot 100 and didn’t receive any RIAA certification.

With haters already predicting their demise, Migos managed to find a lifeline in September 2015 with the success of their Back to the Bando single “Look At My Dab.” The song helped spread the viral dabbing trend and linked Migos to its popularity. It was gimmicky, but it was also a hit. The music video racked up 32 million YouTube views thanks to the dab’s viral moment.

“Look At My Dab” ended up being the lone bright spot for the group over the next year. Their late 2015 mixtape Streets On Lock 4 with Rich The Kid bottomed out with only 100,000 DatPiff downloads, and while YRN 2 rebounded with over 300,000 downloads, neither tape had any singles chart.

Migos' monthly pageviews on Genius fell to only 60,235 across all songs in their catalog by June 2016. This was just a third of their number only one year prior, and less than 10 percent of their post-“Versace” peak in 2013. Google trends shows a similar pattern: a general decline in interest from late 2014 through late 2016 with spikes around their 2015 arrest and the “Look At My Dab” era.

While Migos were quiet as a group, Quavo managed to keep fans interested with solid features on songs like Travis Scott and Young Thug’s “Pick Up the Phone,” Post Malone’s “Congratulations,” and 2 Chainz’s “Good Drank.” This didn’t move the needle on the group’s popularity in early 2016, but it helped keep them in the conversation.

The real turning point in the Atlanta trio’s resurgence was “Bad and Boujee.” The song was a slow burner; first released in August 2016, it didn’t enter the Billboard Hot 100 chart until mid-November. It’s success correlates directly with an explosion in the group’s Genius pageviews, going from 162,094 in September to 406,856 in October and 2.8 million by December. The Atlanta trappers' ode to women with expensive taste gained popularity after the track’s opening lyrics became a viral meme:

Raindrop

Droptop

Smoking on cookie in the hotbox

Fucking on your bitch, she’s a thot, thot, thot

Awful Records affiliate Bootymath helped start the jokes with this viral tweet:

Soon, it became a widespread trend to replace the line “Smoking on cookie in the hotbox” with a different phrase that still fit the rhyme scheme.

Although “Bad and Boujee” led the way, C U L T U R E’s recent singles are also killing it. “T-Shirt” will soon eclipse “Fight Night” and “Handsome and Wealthy” as the trio’s third most popular song on Genius, and it’s only been out since January 6.

Migos were never out of the conversation entirely. Even when their music wasn’t popping off, you could hear their distinctive style on Drake’s “The Language,” Future’s “Covered In Money” or Kanye West, Big Sean, and Rick Ross‘ “Sanctified.” Still, the late 2014-2016 dip in their popularity—and the flop of their debut album—could have caused a less disciplined group to splinter or give up. Instead, Migos stuck it out, scored their biggest hit yet, and just released the most important project of their career.

You can read all the lyrics to Migos' sophomore album C U L T U R E on Genius now.