Hip Hop Album Sales: Drake, Big Sean, Nicki Minaj

    Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is again the best-selling Hip Hop album on the Billboard 200 after Big Sean’s latest fell from #1 to #6 in its second week on shelves. Nicki Minaj is still in the Top 20 as The Pinkprint lands at #13, just a few spots ahead of Mark Ronson’s steadily performing Uptown Special.

    Meanwhile, Chris Brown and Tyga fell more than a dozen spots to #24 after their collaborative album Fan of a Fan debuted in the Top 10 last week. Lower down the list, G-Unit’s latest EP debuts at #27 and Rae Sremmurd see their debut pick up steam after stuttering last week.

    Drake At #4 For A Second Week In A Row

    With another 38,950 albums sold over the last week, Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late has now edged out 721,454 total album sales. The latest numbers represent a 26% decrease in sales for Drake from last week but the Toronto rapper still holds claim to the most-streamed record on the chart with more than 30 million clocked over the latest sales period.

    Big Sean Falls From #1 To #6

    While last week’s release may have put up been Big Sean’s best first-week sales ever, Dark Sky Paradise fell five spots from #1 to #6 most recently. Sean sold another 35,359 records this past week, enough to bring his third album’s total to 174,786. Dark Sky Paradise is still one of the most streamed albums on the chart but the Detroit rapper’s total activity count fell more than 65% over the last seven days with his pure album sales dropping more than 100,000 from his breakout release week.

    G-Unit Debuts At #27

    Now onto their second post-reunion EP, G-Unit debuted at just #27 this past week despite selling more albums than many of the Hip Hop and R&B releases ahead of The Beast on the charts. Despite the 17,639 albums sold, The Beast put up relatively low streaming and single song sales numbers.

    Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 03/08/2015

    #4. Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – 72,878 (38,950) [30,202,277]

    #6. Big Sean – Dark Sky Paradise – 57,516 (35,359) [15,362,815]

    #13. Nicki Minaj – Pinkprint – 34,501 (12,164) [10,938,500]

    #16. Mark Ronson – Uptown Special – 29,278 (4,248) [5,587,155]

    #24. Chris Brown & Tyga – Fan of a Fan: The Album – 21,823 (12,781) [5,427,365]

    #25. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – 20,919 (13,612) [6,556,478]

    #27. G-Unit – The Beast – 18,542 (17,639) [288,841]

    #29. Drake – Thank Me Later – 17,992 (16,657) [1,316,988]

    #30. Rae Sremmurd – Sremmlife – 17,516 (8,405) [4,769,040]

    #33. Ne-Yo – Non-Ficition – 15,047 (7,514) [2,468,825]

    Last Week’s Sales

    20 thoughts on “Hip Hop Album Sales: Drake, Big Sean, Nicki Minaj

      1. that g-unit ep sold more than Omarion and Stalley who are on a major label, Gunplay will be lucky to sell 15k

      2. They cant “flop” they indie the term flop comes from when a major label artist dont move units and cant recoup that money g-unit the label hasa distribution deal and thats it.

      3. Lebron fucking James was promoting Stalleys album and it still only did 10k and fell off the face of the earth to never be heard from again

    1. The numbers for G-Unit – The Beast are actually pretty good and better than expected. A 6 song EP from a New York hip hop based group that been in the game over 10 years.

      1. Hell yeah I don’t see The Lox or Dipset doing numbers anywhere close to this, LOX sold like 2k of their EP.

    2. Damn that is pretty good for the Unit, they sold 17k on an EP with 6 tracks with no major label promotion. If these charts were based only on actual album sales rather than singles streamed also, the Unit would be even higher on the chart as their fans actually purchase their projects, rather than just streaming the popular single that is on the radio like people do with all these other lame ass artists.

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