This week, Beyonce holds on to the #2 spot on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. The singer’s self-titled release continues to fall behind Frozen’s official soundtrack. Meanwhile, Kid Ink has a Top 3 album with My Own Lane, and Aloe Blacc sees an increase in sales to land in the Top 35 with his Wake Me Up EP.
Beyonce Remains #2
Beyonce continues her time in the #2 slot this week, still running behind Frozen’s official soundtrack. Bey’s self-titled release, which has sold 1,510,763 records overall to date, sold 78,881 units this week. Last week, Beyonce sold 130,490 units. This week, beyond selling more than 78,000 units of her new collection, Beyonce’s “Gender Is A Myth” essay was also released. “We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality,” Beyonce said in a piece published in the 2014 Shriver Report. “It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect…If women received pay equal to their male counterparts, the U.S. economy would produce $447.6 billion in additional income.”
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Kid Ink’s My Own Lane Lands In The Top 3
Kid Ink, who is a Los Angeles native, has released a Top 3 album on this week’s chart with My Own Lane. The album, which sold 50,445 units in this, its opening week, was recently reviewed by HipHopDX. My Own Lane earned a 3 out of 5 X rating in the review. “My Own Lane bridges the mainstream appeal of last year with a stylistic presence that could possibly set the tone for 2014,” HipHopDX said of the release in a piece published yesterday (January 14). “Its musical influence pretty much stops there. Kid Ink will certainly have more opportunities in the future to prove why his lane is the movement to move with. For now, that lane is going 35 mph, and Ink is comfortably in cruise control.”
Aloe Blacc’s Wake Me Up EP Surges To Top 35
Aloe Blacc’s new EP, Wake Me Up, has landed in the Top 35 on this week’s chart. The project, which was released in October, saw a jump in sales this week going from #195 to #32. His Wake Me Up EP, which sold 6,269 units this week, has sold 27,104 units overall. In a recent interview with LA Weekly, Aloe Blacc, who is also one half of Emanon with Exile, spoke about his jump as a solo artist from Stones Throw Records to Interscope. “I started with Stones Throw in 2005 and released a single and an album in 2006. Between 2006 and 2009, I was making a lot of music, turning it in and trying to release my next album, because I signed with them for only two albums. By 2009, the owner of the label [Peanut Butter Wolf] wasn’t really interested in anything I was turning in. He thought it sounded too commercial. I guess in a way the label likes things a little bit gritty and underground, and it didn’t sound underground enough. At that time I was recording at professional studios. The manager of the label told the owner of the studio, ‘Let me take over Aloe’s project so we can get something that the label wants.’ They sent me to New York to work with a soul music production team, and I ended up recording Good Things with them. When I brought it back to L.A. to play it for the owner of the label, he said, ‘No, I don’t want to release this music.’
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“I thought, ‘Well it’s been three years since I released anything. I’m an underground independent artist. This is how I pay rent, and until I release something, I’m going to be basically struggling,'” Blacc continued. “It was just really a push and pull between Peanut Butter Wolf and the manager of the label at that time, Eothen Alapatt, or Egon, who has since left Stones Throw. I don’t know if they’ve repaired their relationship, but it was a lot of ‘I don’t like your idea, so I’m not going to let it happen,’ and I was caught in the middle of it. I had to have a heart to heart with Wolf and say, ‘This is my livelihood and I’ve got to release music, and if you won’t release anything, at least let me off the label or something.’ Eventually he relented and released Good Things and ‘I Need a Dollar’ [in 2010]. Luckily, we got the attention of the music supervisor of How to Make it in America who wanted to use ‘I Need a Dollar’ for the theme of the TV show. That gave some traction and movement to the album. Stones Throw never asked to option another album from me. In 2011, I ended up signing with Interscope. In the years prior, Stones Throw never approached me and said, ‘We had success with Good Things, would you like to come and record another album with us?’ which would have been great. I probably would have, but I think they waited a little too long.”
Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 1/12/2013
#2. Beyonce – Beyonce – 79,000 (1,511,000)
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#3. Kid Ink – My Own Lane – 50,000 (50,000)
#4. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP 2 – 36,000 (1,817,000)
#10. R. Kelly – Black Panties – 17,000 (286,000)
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#11. Drake – Nothing Was The Same – 17,000 (1,385,000)
#16. Justin Timberlake – 20/20 Experience Complete – 13,000 (814,000)
#20. Childish Gambino – because the internet – 11,000 (185,000)
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#25. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – The Heist– 9,500 (1,256,000)
#31. B.o.B – Underground Luxury – 6,600 (70,000)
#32. Aloe Blacc – Wake Me Up EP – 6,200 (27,000)
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#45. Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d. city – 5,300 (1,138,000)
#49. Yo Gotti – I Am – 5,200 (125,000)
#67. Jay Z – Magna Carta…Holy Grail– 4,300 (1,109,000)
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#108. Kanye West – Yeezus – 3,000 (633,000)
* data comes from Nielsen Soundscan, rounded to nearest thousand for units above 10,000, nearest hundred for units below 10,000. Each week, HipHopDX presents top albums in Hip Hop/related, and five notables.
Will Beyonce regain the top spot of the charts next week? Stay tuned to HipHopDX.
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Last Week’s Album Sales & Voting Results.
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