Philadelphia Hip Hop mainstay The Roots were the lone Hip Hop addition to the charts this week. Their latest album, undun, received the highest praise possible from HipHopDX – a perfect rating. Meanwhile, clean-cut crooner Robin Thicke brought out a Top 25 release for Interscope which features Lil Wayne, as T-Pain‘s rEVOLVEr released from RCA/Sony Records also featuring Weezy, along with Wiz Khalifa and Pitbull.
The Roots’ undun Gets Major Acclaim, Misses Top 10
The 11th studio album by The Roots was driven by concept. The Def Jam band brought in Big K.R.I.T. and Sufjan Stevens, along with veteran affiliates Dice Raw and Phonte to craft a 14 track effort that clocked in at just under 40 minutes. The work debuted at #16, eight spots lower than last year’s How I Got Over. One of the more impressive works of 2011 sold just under 50,000 units.
Drake’s Take Care Possibly A Week From Platinum
Drake’s Take Care sits just below 970,000 units sold. As early as next week, the former Degrassi actor on pace to have two platinum studio albums and a gold mixtape. The Cash Money/Young Money release features Birdman, Nicki and Rick Ross. The fourth single, “Take Care” 
featuring Rihanna, is at radio now.
Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 12/11/2011
#7. Drake – Take Care – 73,000 (968,000)
#12. Rihanna – Talk That Talk – 52,000 (318,000)
#16. The Roots – undun – 48,000 (48,000)
#20. Mary J. Blige – My Life II: The Journey Continues 42,000 (270,000)
#21. Robin Thicke – Love After War – 41,000 (42,000)
#25. T-Pain – rEVOLVEr – 34,000 (34,000)
#45. Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch The Throne – 20,000 (1,144,000)
#74. Wale – Ambition – 11,000 (281,000)
#97. Yelawolf – Radioactive – 8,400 (62,000)
* data comes from Nielsen Soundscan, rounded to nearest thousandth for units above 10,000, nearest hundredth for units below 10,000.
Can Crooked I’s EP, In None We Trust make a chart appearance? Will Naughty By Nature strike back after a decade away? Stay tuned to HipHopDX.
rap is for kids hiphop is for adults the best album out 48k its ok i know my money was spent well roots salute blackthought top 5 alive
Werd.
Classics albums don’t rely on the numbers. But an album about death may not be the pop album that the masses want to buy. People are already depressed about the economy.
Ha, T-Pain’s career is pretty much over.
It’s funny how lil Wayne’s album is no longer in the charts lol
HHDX just didnt mention it – both Weezy and Jay\Kanye are inside the top50 this week again, Wayne sold around 23k, jaykay around 21.
its funny how fuckin stupid you are, its still on the charts & CARTER 4 OUTSOLD WATCH THE THRONE
Wayne ain’t going anywhere. He works too hard. He really is the hardest working in HipHop. Probably in pop music, overall.
D.O.A
A YOUNG MONEY ALBUM FLOPPED WTF NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I knew signing 2 washed up artists and shitty autotune artist was bad for YMCMB. Dix to Birdman for deciding to sign them
performing one song 10times really paying off for those guys
you got to give the fans what they want if you went to the concert you will know why.instead of hating
one song dont get you a platinum album joe is a dx fanboy.
you can type nigga allday on this website but when you type cracker they erase it why is that?
haha because crackers are weak and they break easy
cuz you koons need to get back onto my cotton farm
no problem when missy go out at night she cummin in the barn
cracker
Real music doesnt sell these days. The Roots deserves at least gold certification for ther Masterpiece
Stop that bullshit already. It’s one of the biggest myths I’ve ever heard.
Crisis, man
t pain flopped LMFAO
watch the throne is still on the charts
i cant see CARTER 4 ANYWHERE HAAHAHA DAT SH.IET FLOPPPED
cause it sold more than wtt
yeh, yelawolf sold more records than Lil wayne.. clearly a mistake smh
WTT still selling, and probly will continue to do so, it still has at least 2,3 more radio singles to release….Roots dell will increase when more singles are released and a your begins, older consumers don’t always run out and cop the album in the first or second week part of the reason why you still see WTT still moving 21000 units after being out for 3 months…the younger consumers run out and cop the first and second week and you start to see the numbers decrese fastly
ARE YALL REALLY THAT LAZY NOT TO SHOW EVERY HIP HOP ARTIST? WHERE IS COLE #S? IM SURE HES IN THE TOP 200 WTF. AND WAYNE PROBABLY SOLD LIKE 30-50K. JUST GIVE US THE LINK ALREADY AND WE’LL CHECK BY OURSELVES SMH…
I highly doubt SoundScan would allow HipHop DX to publisher album sales for every album; they’re probably allowed to only show the top 200 hip hop albums. Companies have to make a deal–which can be a LOT of money–first with SoundScan before they get the numbers. So that’s probably the deal and why DX doesn’t show every album sale.
jay-z-13 lil-1
haha the roots outsold t-pain, that’s jokes xD
Roots didn’t really do much to promote so that’s not all that surprising, they really need a new marketing manager
LOL at T-Pain. If that mofo actually released the album when it was recorded rather than delaying it by 3 years because he was cautious of the numbers he’d do (and got greedy) – he would have sold a lot more fo’ sure.
Plank
ppl really dont buy good music nemore… o well i bought that roots album it was money well spent for sure
The sad thing is that even though people love a particular artist, they will sure as hell download their album for real. Now for the few fans like yourself and me, with the numbers dwindling, we’re the only reason albums are being bought. I have to admit, there are a few that I would otherwise say so, but I do believe in purchasing my favorite artists album regardless of a paid fee for unlimited music…I do believe in supporting as well as having a hard copy of the albums in mintness..
I hear the same shit: SUPPORT HIP-HOP, SUPPORT HIP-HOP, yet the shit is still the same. Acts with talent and creativity selling less and less, compared to those who bring the same bullshit on each album, just in different forms.
Its depressing but ask yourself. Will people buying this garbage still be listening to the same shit years later?………..Nope! Great music/hip hop has never really sold well(Exception of ATCQ, Eric B. & Rakim etc). Good music is all about longevity.
Well put Ralden. Shit is a “flash in a pan”, and the garbage that’s selling now won’t stand the test of time. The real shit will, always has always will.
Eh, do these stats count itunes as well? That’s how I got my undun (and most other records these days.. Can’t really be bothered with a store anyway)
I think everybody needs to just let hip hop be hip hop. obviously its gonna change and we not gonna like all the changes but just let it be..support hip hop regardless. im not saying listen to drake or nas. support who you like and just dont hate..let it be
Some hate is okay though right? The game would be boring without some tension…..
This was a question asked the Greatest ever, 2pac Shakur and see the insight in his response and compare it to the musical mentality today.
ON HIS OWN LEGACY TO HIP-HOP MUSIC
Tupac:
“To me, it’s really troubling because I look over at what’s successful–Marky Mark, Hammer, Vanilla Ice, New Kids on the Block selling twenty-two million copies, and I want that so badly, but I can’t do that. I would be wrong to do that, knowing what I know and having the brain that I have, for me to even go and write some simple shit would be wrong even though I would get paid and I would get more people’s money. I would rather leave something so that when people pick up 2Pacalypse Now or any of my other albums in 1999, they’ll go, ‘Damn! Brothers had it hard back in the day, but brothers were working it out.”
Real talk by 2pac and he never deviated from that. The man thrieved to make great music and heart ripping lyrics and many 15 years after, his music is played all around the world.
For me my perspective about music today and sales is different. Look it was not like back in the 90’s they were not some pop hiphop because there were some but like 2pac exemplifies, it’s a personal choice by an artist to make great hiphop music or not. What really seperated the greats like 2pac, Biggie back in the day was they stayed to their roots and made great hiphop music and still sold. Pac was outselling any hiphop artist before his death but he did not do that because he was sounding like MC Hammer. Nah, he did that by making great music. So many tear’s, picture me rolling, california love , life goes on , etc. Today, the focus is how many club bangers or hits a rapper can force onto an album but the truth is todays generation are not necessarily as talented.
Of course technology played a part in the demise in record sales but all the blame should not be on it. Downloading is easier now but there was bootlegging in the 90s too. Today’s artist even have a much better platform to advertise and sell their music that the 90’s and early to mid 2000’s. The music unfortunately is just not that great. One hit on the album and the rest is pretty garbage. Of course consumers are realising this and will get that single off itunes and say bye to the rest of the album. What people don’t realise is singles were also made available on sales in the 90s too but people still bought whole albums.
I understand time changes and hiphop is changing but that is not excuse for some of the average hiphop we hear this days. I for one appreciate the music today, i’m just not too excited about it. But this year has been good for hiphop i’ll say in terms of sales and quality of music. We had Red Album, Section 8.0, Cole World , WTT etc and it was ok. I will not hate on Lil Waynes Carter IV or Drake’s Take Care. They have the audience who seems to appreciate and love their music so go for them and i even play a track or two from their current albums myself but let us hope the standard set this year can be maintained and then by chance, sales will also start increasing and we wouldn’t have to be putting “Flop” next to albums sales of artist and laughing and hating at them.
Sales will not determine the best rappers but who are we to say they are not important in an artist’s history? 2pac of all and i’m the biggest of his fans will tell you:
“We outsold all record labels from the East side in one year” and will often shit on others for not selling as much as him but you could never blame the guys, he knew he had the talent.
You wanna take Pac’s dead cock out your mouth?
@Anon – You wanna take Wayne’s out yours?
Typical response of a low intelect. 2pac’s cock is in ashes but your favourite rapper will still never reach his sales.
tupac was a genius; too bad he made ignorant stereotypical thug music as well too. i liked the more philosophical pac. not the “yeah nigga guns my niggas and hoes” pac
this year was aight, but i would say that the ‘standard’ was established last year tho, what with How I Got Over, Sir Lucious Left Foot, Kush N OJ, Distant Relatives, Dark Twisted Fantasy, and i would even say Teflon Don and Mr. Rager, which was a great leap in quality across the board from most ’09 albums.
Then again, during Pac’s time, there wasn’t any digital downloading like there is today. Back then, we were limited to having that 16.99 in our pocket and no other option on getting an album unless a buddy had it, and who would be an asshole on lending it out. Because back then, it was about who supported the artist, and had the album and held weight. Not today. The whole Napster era changed that, it was signs that the whole music accumulation was changing. We do have internet police now, but we have to believe that no matter what the record label, an album will leak and we will download it to our hearts content. And who loves having to spend money when we can cop shit for free??? There are those few that do believe that an artists work is worth the support, but the whole scenario is fucked up…
@TheReal
have you any idea how rampant bootlegging and dubbing was with cassettes back in the day? thats why the industry had that whole ‘home taping is killing music’ campaign.
oh yeh, heres a vid of Pac gettin mad at a bootlegger lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G7cEIAYSZM
Undun hardly sold any less than How I Got Over in the first week, the month we’re in though probably explains why it didn’t chart as well.
shouldn’t it sell more in this month?
hate it when niggas making wack excuses that make no sense
everyone buy the roots album it should of been at least in the top 10 since its only 3.99 on amazon mp3
classics dont usually sell well, anyways it took 12 years for illmatic to become platnium
damn ever heard of a tribe called quest? dem niggaz made at least three classics (in a row) and went platinum. fux wit it.
Illmatic went plat in 2001. That’s 7 years. Learn your maths dumb ass.
name one roots album that was #1 or sold a ass of records them dudes dont do big numbers are they hurting from that hell no so stfu with buy this and that shit them dudes good
daym the soundscan looking bad
is rihanna madia hype or is she just a person who sell singles? her last album didnt sell and his one isnt doing any better. but it seem to me like her popularity is up on the level oh any top female artist besides gaga.
go to wiki and look at her sales her album is on pace to sell a mill as usual
Says “do your research” and then he cites Wiki as a reference. Dumb shit.
She’s chosen to be in the game thus they will keep her name hot no matter if she sells or not.
she is very popular around the world, thats the difference, for example here in Argentina more people know Rihanna than Jayz or Lil Wayne, these record sales don’t sum up the worldwide total lol.
Not really Gaga’s popularity is now gonna go down the tubes coz she’s been dumped by Interscope and Konvict and now she’s looking for a new label and I doubt YMCMB or EMI would wanna sign her.
what are you talking about? Gaga was dumped off her record label, I’m sure they’d dump the hottest artist in the world. such a stupid comment. and good albums don’t sell great anymore, its bs that people have such poor taste in music.
werd george. It’s borderline infuriating that garbage artists get blown up while real artists are cast aside. Mainstream kills anything real.
Everybody knows the record repors are all rigged and a scam anyway. Another way to promote the artists they’re pushing. Support the good artists and hopefully the rest will go away quietly.
go get yelawolfs album its album of the year hands down with wale right behind him
over The Roots? no way. cop Kendrick’s Section 80, Phonte’s Charity Starts At Home, Royce Da 5’9’s Success Is Certain, Talib Kweli’s Gutter Rainbows, The Root’s Undun or Random Axe’s album. Or even Styles P or J. Cole’s new album. Purchase any of those over Yelawolfs or Wale’s album. They’re decent albums but not close to those mentioned above
^^^ Talib’s album was trash
yelawolf doing trunk numbers
Oh shit bossip finally put up WTT sales. If y’all gonna put up album sales put out albums ppl want to see.
Right now on http://www.bks1radio.com DJ Solo on the wheels of steel! @ 9 pm we rate and review D Strong and Mac The Burden on the Live In The Cipher Show. MC’s call 646-233-1302 and spit your hot 16!
I bought Undun, in my opinion thats the album of the year, it’s DEFINITELY worth the money
yea i copped it as well, same with evidence “cats & dogs” feels good to support extremely talented artists who don’t get the sales they deserve. gonna grab the new common album before the end of the year too.
Yela should at least sell 100k even tho his album flopped like shit.
yeah. i guess eminem should have been on more songs and maybe i would have gone gold
Yela’s album diddnt flop.
he sold 110K+ WITHOUT anyyyy advertising.
only thing he had was internet hype.
He siad it him self he diddnt wanna be a mainstream artist and go pop. he wants to stick with his fan base.
his numbers are exactly the same as his last album
Guys we should be baggin Yelawolf. T-pain flopped selling only 34k and he’s a Mainstream R&B artist dix to YMCMB for signing him.
ymcmb didnt sign him
yea they did he has parted ways wit Konvict and Akon and he got signed to YMCMB and dats why he’s beggin lil wayne for dat T-Wayne shit.
My mistake Shouldnt
Black Cocaine?
Was terrible. Mobb should end their career. Prodigy fell off like no other rapper ever did before him.
I supported radioactive and was let down a bit. Yella is a great MC tho….. all those freestyles got me yela, you tricked me dude!!!
YMCMB RUNNING THE GAME LMAO DRAKE A MONTH IN AND OUT SELLING THE DAMN ROOTS LMAO. THIS SHIT AINT EVEN HARD NO MORE YMCMB MACHINE. WAYNE SETTING ALL KIND OF TOUR RECORDS . DRAKE WILL CATCH WACK ASS WATCH THE THRONE SOON ENOUGH. DRAKE AND WAYNE THE REAL KINGS OF HIP HOP
But seriously signing Busta and Mystikal those guys are washed up and wat the fuck was Wayne thinking when he signed T-pain i mean seriously his new album has flopped worse than Yelawolf’s
OUCH… !! how the hell does Eminems mixtape hell the sequence sell 600,000 and yelawolfs debut ALBUM cant even cross 100k??
Looks like Ems the only one keeping Shady Records out the hole. Lets see how slaughterhouse do. The problem with em is that he signs these lyrical dudes when he knows that in the state of hip hop right now lyrics dont sell. Hot beats and catchy hooks sells right now. with that being said i predict slaughterhouse will also flop
That wasnt a mixtape it was an EP wioth him and Royce and the have been working on that for about 6 years allready.
^^^ They haven’t been working on that for six years you idiot. They were beefing during that time. They only started it after Recovery dropped.
This is wat’s gonna happen
Yelawolf probably gonna sell 100k one eminem feature
Slaughterhouse probably gonna go Platinum and probz 10 eminem features.
did lil wayne fall off the charts, not a fan, but i know he has to be still selling top 50 numbers. someone said it right hiphopdx picks & chooses what numbers they want to post & support
People keep saying Drake and Wayne are kings of hip hop like it’s something to be proud of right now. And they are not the kings of HIP HOP, they are kings of mainstream garbage. Big difference. Keep riding their dicks to the end though. And the rest of us will listen to real music.
WaitAmin.Can someone explain to me how t-pain still has 34,000 fans???? How does the coonmaster outsell the roots. I feel sorry for this ESTROgeneration…please listen to rappers over 27 too or this music will really become hip pop
Im not one of those everything was better in my day type niggas but come on.The two main radio stars are singing to each other in codes wearing jeggings and tucking napkins in they shirt. Just a decade and some change ago niggas was on the radio rapping bout gunplay,thuglife and going in raw on bitches…coincedence I think not.
Yela’s album was good better than C4 garbage…still R.E.D. is the album of the year…lets check out commons TD/TB
yelawolf FAILED
jimmy iovine is UPSET
eminem is going to be PUNISHED
i love it. faggot white rapper FLOPS under eminem. justice.
62,000 records sold on SHADY records?
yelawoof is gonna be opening up for eminem impersonators a year from now. all hype no fans.
sad thing is slaughterhouse is gonna do even worse. eminem is going to be rapping in his 50’s to pay jimmy back.
Well too bad the Roots didn’t sell more, but they never really sold much anyways…I remember when Rising Down only did 7,000 it’s first week, I felt kind of honored to be one of those 7,000….but it doesn’t matter…
because THE ROOTS JUST OUTSOLD T-PAIN!!!!!!!! That’s a win no matter how you slice it.
Um no it didn’t. Rising Down sold 54000 first week and went number 6 on the charts… I don’t know what you’re talking about
yelawolf didnt flop its called being under eminem as first white rapper. 62,000 sold ill take that anyday.. big ups to yelawolf..
Artists are ok. Crisis is affecting sales.