With 2010 half over, music sales figures have been tabulated. Within the Top 10 sellers of the Rap/Hip Hop genre for this year, two Georgia rappers, B.o.B. and Gucci Mane make first time appearances. Bobby Ray’s Grand Hustle/Atlantic Records debut, The Adventures of Bobby Ray is the sixth-best seller in the genre, clearing over 280,000 units to date. Gucci, who began this year imprisoned, has sold over 185,000 units this year of his Warner Brothers 2009 album, The State vs. Radric Davis.
The big winner however, is Lil Wayne’s Young Money Records. With a distribution deal through Universal Motown, the Cash Money Records subsidiary includes Wayne, Drake and soon-to-be released Nicki Minaj. Among the Top 10 Rap albums sold this 2010, Young Money had four (in order of top to bottom): Drake’s Thank Me Later, Lil Wayne’s Rebirth, Young Money’s We Are Young Money and Drake’s So Far Gone. The latter two both released in 2009, with strong sales into this year.
From a major label perspective, among the 10,Universal/Motown releases lead with the four YM releases, Atlantic follows with two (Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 and B.o.B.), Interscope with two (Eminem’s Relapseand Recovery), while Def Jam and Warner Brothers end out the list with one release each (Gucci Mane and Ludacris’s Battle of the Sexes).
In overall sales, Eminem’s Recovery comes fifth, behind Justin Bieber, Sade, Lady Gaga and top-seller Lady Antebellum.
