In a slower week for Hip Hop debut releases on the charts, Freeway‘s Free At Last was what many forecast to be the big addition to the Top 25. As some skeptics of Def Jam‘s second year of crowded fourth quarter releases predicted, Free‘s long-awaited follow-up fared not so well, cracking in at number 42, scanning just over 36,000 units.
Timbaland‘s group One Republic, with their rock-crossover-urban hit “Apologize,” scanned 74,000 units for The Mosely Group, coming in at number 17 with Dreaming Out Loud.
Other notables included the falling Jay-Z American Gangster title, which is down almost a third from last week’s numbers, at 86,500 (683,000 overall). Soulja Boy continues to find a push with his second single, as his debut album scanned over 44,000 (381,000 overall), showing nearly a 10,000 unit increase from last week.
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Those playing at home can know that Kanye West‘s Graduation scanned 39,000 (1,700,000 overall), while Timbaland did 27,000 (884,000 overall) of Shock Value, as 50 Cent fell to Number 62, with 21,000 scans (1,125,000 overall) of his Curtis.
The charts, which were capped by singer Josh Groban‘s 405,000 unit-selling week of Christmas album Noel, saw only one urban artist in the top 10 – Alicia Keys with her As I Am, selling 348,000, bringing her just over the platinum benchmark.
Next week the southern independent rap group Cunninlynguists claw for chart recognition, as a sweep of Def Jam and Universal releases prepare to garner the talk in December including Wu-Tang Clan, Beanie Sigel and Ghostface Killah, while independents Scarface and Styles P ready up.
