J. Cole has the #1 album in the country and the biggest first-week sales numbers of any Hip Hop artist in 2014. With just over 350,000 albums sold in its first week, 2014 Forest Hills Drive knocked Taylor Swift’s big seller down to #2 for only the second time since her album was released. The news comes just a week after Wu-Tang Clan failed to break into the Top 25—they’re at #120 this week—and Cole’s numbers are more than double the sales projections for Nicki Minaj’s new album, which will get its first sales report next week.
Meanwhile, Eminem’s compilation album Shady XV dropped out of the Top 20 as did Rick Ross’ Hood Billionaire following first-week debuts in the Top 10. In addition to a handful of R&B releases including K. Michelle’s new album, PRhyme and E-40 also counted their new projects in the highest-selling Hip Hop albums of the week. Ghostface Killah also saw his latest album, 36 Seasons, chart at #95.
J. Cole Has The #1 Album In The Country
Outpacing already lofty first-week sales projections of up to 270,000 copies, J. Cole sold a total of 353,538 albums as of Sunday (December 14). The release quickly jumped to the #1 spot in iTunes and despite a quiet promo lead-up was able to outsell the next biggest seller by more than 75,000 units.
In addition to the album sales, 2014 Forrest Hills Drive sold 103,676 single songs and was streamed 10,984,761 times, bringing its total Billboard activity number to 371,228. This third album from J. Cole is his second to debut at #1 and third to reach the milestone after Born Sinner climbed up to the top spot in its third week in stores last year. The latest numbers also highlight the biggest first-week sales numbers of Cole’s career as well as the best first-week performance from any Hip Hop artist this year, eclipsing Rick Ross’ outing with Mastermind in March.
K. Michelle Debuts At #6
With some first-week gossip controversy with Lil Kim keeping her name in the headlines, R&B singer K. Michelle outsold One Direction’s album to take the #6 spot in its first week on the shelves. K. Michelle’s Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart? sold a total of 84,117 units and was streamed more than 1,578,000 times.
PRhyme & E-40 Debut At #59 & #61
Lower down the list, a trio of veteran artists arrived on the charts with a pair of albums released in the past week. The joint project between Slaughterhouse rapper Royce Da 5’9 and iconic producer DJ Premier reached #59 with a total of 13,547 albums sold. Just two spots down, the first of a trio of albums from E-40, Sharp On All Corners, debuted with nearly 12,000 units sold and more than half a million streams.
Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 12/14/2014
Note: The figures below represent this week’s “total activity,” an intersection of album sales, single sales, and streams. A pure album sales figure is available in parenthesis and information about each album’s streaming count is available in brackets.
#1. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – 371,228 (353,538) [10,984,761]
#6. K. Michelle – Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart? – 87,140 (84,117) [1,578,410]
#25. Mary J. Blige – The London Sessions – 27,532 (26,398) [589,466]
#31. Chris Brown – X – 23,741 (15,877) [4,727,436]
#37. Eminem – ShadyXV – 21,019 (17,904) [2,082,585]
#44. Beyonce – Beyonce – 19,556 (11,436) [5,337,855]
#57. Pitbull – Globalization – 15,539 (10,216) [2,048,117]
#59. PRhyme – PRhyme – 14,188 (13,547) [249,667]
#61. E-40 – Sharp On All 4 Corners: 1 – 13,697 (11,770) [510,369]
#64. Rick Ross – Hood Billionaire – 12,543 (10,171) [1,505,176]
Where are the totals? This shit is confusing. FIX IT!!
no shit! i hate this BS. we need a physical sales total so i can see how officer ricky barely moved 100k with another jay-z single.
I’m not confused but I do want the sum total of album sales, that’s still very relevant.
The streaming I get why it’s up there, new money schematics but the total is of interest.
What are you guys confused about?
The total album sales for Cole were 353k and album+sales+streams make for a total of 371k for total consumption. Its really not that confusing, everything you would like to know is in front of you.
its not confusing for cole because this is first week but everyone else who been out for multiple weeks has no total sales without streams and shit factored in.. like is someone wanted to know how much pitbulls album has sold so far… its not on here
Ok ok I get what you are saying.
Yeh since they have been doing this SPS chart shit they have stopped telling us what the albums have sold thus far. I think they aren’t reporting it because its just so much numbers now.
Having to give Album sales, then Sales Plus Streams and then total streams. To add total albums sold thus far shouldn’t be that hard but its gonna look like a bunch of numbers that may confuse ppl even more. Damn it if they just actually put together a chart with all these variables then all would be well.
its 2014 we have the technology. make a damn spread sheet. i would rather see total physical sales than that huge total with streams and everything that means nothing. niggas sell 100k and it says 1.5 milli beside they name!
Cole’s album became the latest to enjoy a sales increase due to Billboard’s change in tracking album sales for its Top 200 album chart. Under Billboard’s new method, 1,500 streams is equivalent to one album sale. Cole’s record-seting 15.7 million Spotify streams accounted for roughly 10,466 albums sold. The new method also takes into account “track equivalent” album sales which, count every ten song downloads from an album as an album sale.
Streaming and track equivalent album sales accounted for 17,690 of the total album sales for the first week, and those 15.7 million Spotify streams accounted for roughly 59 percent of those sales.
– from billboard
you forgot to mention that cole broke spotify records, breaking one directions record for most streams in one album.
DAMN my nigga cole sold more 1st week than Officer Ricky’s Mastermind sold in 9 months! LOL THE JIG IS UP!
I haven’t commented here in a while before today because honestly they need to solve the blatant trolling that takes place. They need to get disqus ASAP.
Anyway Cole doing numbers!
The jig is fucking up, ppl tired of the same songs about money, bitches, drugs ova the same beats, copying the same flows, over and over again.
I just wish record labels would recognize it and act accordingly. We seen the jig is up from Kendrick dropped and then he ended IP going Platinum. So just stop it with the trash. They will force migos on you, Young Thug and all dat shit but guess what, ain’t none of that shit gonna sell.
True true. Even Big KRIT sold more than Bobby Shmurda, even though Bobby had “Hot Nigga” blowing up the internet. Trinidad James and Chief Keef both got dropped from their labels this year. The jig is up, indeed.
Hip Hop is back if only for a moment. J. Cole is the biggest artist in the game. Back in 2009, I would have told you that but I don’t know if I would believe it. This is a beautiful moment for the game. Can Kendrick take the throne? Will Drake take it back? Whether you like Cole or not this is a big deal because labels will value these type of artist over the others. Even Waka Flocka got a flow now.
I think lupe Kendrick n few others are better mc’s but cole selling like that is most def good for the new generation of hip hop cause every other ‘big’ artist be fucking trash making pop tracks garbage lyrics. This nigga Cole sold 370 thousand with hardly any promotion and only put out the video for his single same week his album droped
J Cole to Rick Ross: “I sold what your whole album sold my first week.”
hahahaha so true
That don’t mean either one was good real talk both these dudes keep making the same CD sorry but Cole only good for 3 songs then gets boring as fuck
Ross to J. Cole: “But I made more money off mine”
^ He didn’t, though, considering that they both made the same amount on Forbes.
How could Ross make more money off his album? He had more promo, more features, big name producers, and sold less! both his albums lost money.
Garbage lyrics and beats..Needed a Thugga or Keef feature to bring some real rap to this project. Cole needs to rap bout real shit like makin money and fuckin them bitches. nigga been trash since the warm up dropped..fuck im boutta go bump some lyrical CHiraq shit
The sarcasm. LOL
hahaha you calling makin’ money and fuckin them hoes a real shit object to rap about .. man GTFO .. Rap was made up for speaking about problems and life (happy or bad ) not just money and bitches like all the YMCM boys do .. go listen to them if u want to .
HIP HOP ALBUM SALES
#44. Beyonce – Beyonce – 19,556 (11,436) [5,337,855]
#57. Pitbull – Globalization – 15,539 (10,216) [2,048,117]
YOU KNOW YA DONE FUCKED UP RIGHHH
YAAAS!
Enuff said. Rozay should leave Def Jam. They fell off since 1999. Their biggest act Rihanna has left and Rozay needs to go. If Rozay was on any other label…fuck that if Rozay was Indie he did be Quadruple plat by now.
Def Jam lost its soul in 1999.
Congrats to J-Cole. I was kinda scared for hiphop for a minute. I mean HHDX was classifying Iggy, Jessie J and Grande as HipHop? WTF tho?
So disappointed in the PRhyme album, especially with Preemo’s promoting on Instagram. Boring and nothing memorable. Sad day.
Whatttttt? That album is so dope, you don’t know what you’re talking about.. And about memorable, “The only time a women made a man a millionaire, is when that man was a former billionaire, how trill is that..” Classic shit on that album.
People have spoken: step your music up
Why the f* do you not write a total sales? Shame!
Nigga this is the WEEKLY numbers. Why you care about total sales? You base quality on quantity sold? Listen to music
COLE WORLD
sad numbers from primo and royce. real dope ass hip-hop shit.
capitalism is dead along with major labels
Damn forgot Ross even had an album out. You see Lil Wayne this is what happens when you’re on a real label. Roc Nation stand up. And how do your supposedly dad have you under contract your deal should of been with a hand shake.
My nigga Fab with roc nation too !! They know they have to take Fab to the next level to expand his brand ! They going to give him something hey really NEVER had.. And that’s hit records !! Fab is nice but he never really had billboard success .. More mixtape success !!
How you gonna say Fab never had a hit record that’s not true and he wouldn’t be here today if he never did. Plus he’s hits aren’t his best tracks the hits are the ones for the bitches and have Neyo on the hook. lol roc nation wont help much he wont do jcole #’s
Fab is only managed by Roc Nation he still signed to Def Jam the graveyard
J COLE earned that s#1 spot..2014 ended with a well deserved HIP HOP ARTIST being at the TOP…COLE WORLD baby!…..the whole album is an INSTANT CLASSIC!…..it is up there with GK,MC by KENDRICK LAMAR….it is that GREAT!
Cole shit is too mellow for me. I fell asleep listening to that shit. Classic? Nigga please LMFAO. Sorry he’s not on kendricks level
Kendrick lamar is overrated that album is not an instant classic ppl dick ride whats popular too much.
lebrick- thats coz u a lil bitch ass hoe.
J cole is real grown up talk
go listen to ross or drake bitch.
cop my album too cunt.
wow…its sad to see Wu-Tang Clan flop this hard. Their record is still hotter than most music out there. #120 in 2nd week is a disgrace to music. C’mon, its hip hop biggest brand.
Hiphopdx motherfuckers didnt comment or post anything about it but SPM’s latest record “Son of norma” did pretty well comparing to most rap artists! (#61).
YESSS, J.COLE !!! I’m going to buy his album too! Support real music and these other labels will have to follow the money.. They will leave trash rappers alone and just ask them ” who did the beat yo?”
what about 50 ´s number
why would he be on here months later? rozay about to fall off the charts and his album only been out 3 weeks LOL
YOU MUTHAFUKKERS WHY DONT YOU JUST WRITE the total number of albums sold. bitch ass cunts
c’mon hhdx, why not just give the old numbers so I can show I’m a groupie! I know I don’t buy music but geez, I can’t be the Wednesday music executive if you post the company numbers I have no idea of what they mean! how can I front to my friends and the internet if you don’t cooperate with me and give me what I need so I can act like I know it all?
How man units did the new ghostface move?
The day eminem sells like benzino