21 Savage‘s new album American Dream has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with his highest first-week sales tally as a solo artist.
The Atlanta rapper’s latest project topped the chart with 133,000 album-equivalent units in its opening week, according to Billboard.
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American Dream marks 21’s fourth No. 1 album and narrowly surpasses the first-week sales of his last solo LP, 2018’s i am > i was, which opened with 131,000 units. It went on to be nominated for Best Rap Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.
21’s largest sales weeks still come from his high-profile collaborations, though, with Her Loss alongside Drake earning an impressive 404,000 first-week units and his Savage Mode 2 album with Metro Boomin achieving 171,000 units.
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Released on January 12, American Dream was announced just days prior to its release and boasts features from Young Thug, Travis Scott, Lil Durk, Summer Walker, Brent Faiyaz and more.
An accompanying biopic starring Donald Glover, Caleb McLaughlin and 21 Savage himself is set to arrive on July 4. The film, also called American Dream, chronicles his journey from his birthplace of London to the U.S., where he moved with his mother at the age of seven.
In a 3.5 out of 5 review, HipHopDX‘s Will Schube praised American Dream‘s “deeply intimate” lyricism, writing: “The album is at its best when 21 taps into this pathos. The dead-eyed nihilism of Savage Mode is almost entirely gone, and even the victory lap theatrics of i am > i was don’t really appear.
“There’s no need for gimmicks like on Issa Album or Savage Mode II. Instead, American Dream is 21 Savage at his most deeply intimate, treating the recording booth like a diary, examining his life and career from a 30,000 foot view.”
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Elsewhere on this week’s Billboard 200, Kid Cudi narrowly missed out on his eighth top 10 album as his star-studded INSANO debuted at No. 13, according to HITS Daily Double.
The album, which dropped the same day as 21 Savage’s American Dream, was expected to move between 40-45,000 first-week units, although final figures have yet to be revealed.
