The lone Hip Hop addition the charts last week was an EP from K’Naan. Meanwhile Homeboy Sandman‘s Stones Throw Records debut EP and The Alchemist and Oh No’s second Gangrene project both missed the Top 200 of the charts. The week did see large gains happened on late 2011 albums from Yelawolf and The Roots, as one release remained in the Top 10.
K’Naan’s More Beautiful Than Silence Debuts On The Charts
Somali Canadian emcee-singer K’Naan’s fifth overall release, an EP, debuted at #172. The A&M Records release features previous collaborator Nas, along with Nelly Furtado. The five-song work is K’Naan’s first release in nearly three years, since Troubadour. A full-length effort is reportedly in the works for release later this year. In an interview with HipHopDX in January, K’Naan explained the EP’s influence, “I got a lot of friends, rappers that we all respect, and they know what I do, they know what I can do, and they always [telling] me like, ‘K’Naan, you need to go at them. You really need to explain [the environment you come from] to them.’ And so, part of my response on the new record is really just to be that, just to show people like, ‘Look, I can be explicitly direct about this shit.’ I took a place for such a long time of humble grace, in which I would rather you figure this shit out before I gotta explain it. But I think it’s time to explain it.”
Yelawolf’s Radioactive, The Roots’ undun Display Growth On The Charts
Yelawolf’s studio debut, Radioactive, climbed 14 spots in the last week. With new single/video “Let’s Roll” circulating, the Shady/Interscope sensation has now crossed the 100,000 unit milestone. The Roots’ acclaimed undun album climbed an astonishing 68 spots last week, largely due to a one-day Amazon sale, placing the digital version of the LP at $3.99. The band for the The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon’s “perfect” HipHopDX album features appearances from Big K.R.I.T., Phonte and Dice Raw.
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Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 1/8/2012
#9. Drake – Take Care – 26,000 (1,376,000)
#17. Young Jeezy – TM 103: Hustler’s Ambition – 18,000 (398,000)
#29. Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne – 12,000 (1,285,000)
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#37. Lil Wayne – Tha Carter IV – 10,000 (1,976,000)
#88. The Roots – undun – 4,800 (112,000)
#100. Yelawolf – Radioactive – 4,200 (103,000)
#105. Mac Miller – Blue Slide Park – 4,000 (277,000)
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#106. Yo Gotti – Live From The Kitchen – 3,900 (25,000)
#109. Common – The Dreamer / The Believer – 3,800 (115,000)
#172. K’Naan – More Beautiful Than Silence – 2,500 (2,500)
* data comes from Nielsen Soundscan, rounded to nearest thousandth for units above 10,000, nearest hundredth for units below 10,000. Each week, HipHopDX presents top albums in Hip Hop/related, and five notables.
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Will Diplomats/Tragedy Khadafi producer Araabmuzik’s Instrumental University crack the Top 200? Stay tuned to HipHopDX.
