After two of the most-anticipated albums of the year thus far were released last Tuesday (January 20), the official Soundscan numbers are in and Joey Bada$$ has the best-selling Hip Hop album in the country. Meanwhile, Lupe Fiasco’s latest album broke into the Top 20 at #14 while Nicki Minaj held steady at #6.
Lower down the list, J. Cole fell out of the Top 10 for the first time since his album was released but brought his total sold count to 708,494 after selling another 22,501 units last week.
Joey Bada$$ Debuts At #5
Releasing his debut album on the same day that Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo & Youth and Lil Wayne’s Sorry 4 The Wait 2 dropped, Joey Bada$$ officially has the best-selling Hip Hop album on the Billboard 200. In the span of a single week, B4.Da.$$ clocked 53,990 sales and was streamed more than 3 million times. On top of the streams, Bada$$ sold more than 16,000 single songs from the record and his total album equivalency number reached 57,694 as a result.
Nicki Minaj Holds On At #6
For a second week in a row, Nicki Minaj’s Pinkprint album is at #6 on the charts with the latest numbers nearly replicating her performance last week. Minaj sold another 27,623 units this past week, bringing her total sold count up to 446,029 since the album’s release last month. If she keeps up with her current sales, Minaj is on pace to break the Gold album milestone in just under two weeks.
Lupe Fiasco At #14
While Lupe Fiasco’s latest album sold less than half the number of albums as his last release did in its first week on the shelves, the 39,281 copies of Tetsuo & Youth Lu pushed this past week were enough to help him into the Top 20 at #14. The album was also streamed 2,382,138 times which helped Lupe’s total activity number peak at 42,458.
Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Hip Hop & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 01/25/2015
Note: The first number below is this week’s “total album equivalent units” count, an intersection of album sales, single sales, and streams implemented by Billboard’s new rating system. A pure album sales figure is available in bold in parenthesis and information about each album’s streaming count is available in brackets.
#5. Joey Bada$$ – B4.Da.$$ – 57,694 (53,990) [3,088,426]
#6. Nicki Minaj – Pinkprint – 53,580 (27,623) [11,825,903]
#10. Mark Ronson – Uptown Special – 48,582 (9,640) [6,312,689]
#14. Lupe Fiasco – Tetsuo & Youth – 42,458 (39,281) [2,382,138]
#16. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – 31,997 (22,501) [8,148,716]
#24. Rae Sremmurd – SremmLife – 19,056 (7,842) [5,390,523]
#32. Pitbull – Globalization – 14,590 (3,432) [3,189,395]
#41. Jazmine Sullivan – Reality Show – 11,354 (9,710) [1,299,602]
#42. Iggy Azalea – Reclassified – 11,310 (2,015) [4,067,146]
#46. Beyonce – Beyonce – 10,598 (3,831) [4,290,313]
Go cop that Lupe and Joey y’all! Support Real Hip Hop!
Yo bitch broke ass didn’t even buy them albums yourself! Now shut the fukkk up and sit yo as down!
3m stream hits & 50k sold say YOU ain’t cop it either weirdo
I also have the ability to pull up random bank statements and find out how much other people have and see who brought what. You guys didn’t buy them either.
I never said I did,
Lupe Fiasco bombed again. Seriously, he sucks.
Considering that there wasn’t a lot of promo, there was no radio single, and the fact that this album has nothing but good reviews, this isn’t a bomb for Lupe, who doesn’t suck.
There was tons of promo and the radio singles bombed. Just because they bombed doesn’t mean there weren’t any singles.
What tons of promo? There is none. And there are no singles, so it didn’t bomb.
All the dopest MC don’t sell that much.
You suck. Measuring an artist by album sales suck. Read a book.
Since when has Lupe moved huge numbers?
haha joey sold more than lupe on an independent label.
Lupe sold 42 nicki 27 joey 53 how lupe number 24 0n the chart ghis shit fugazy
Number 14 typo
Lupe’s new album was amazing! One of his best. Sales don’t indicate how good a album is. People love Tech9 but his albums don’t have huge sales numbers. You people that judge a album by its sales numbers and don’t even listen to it are not hip-hop fans or even really music fans. Your just morons and this mentality is what has been ruining the music industry for over a decade..
The production lyrics and delivery on Lupe’s album was beautiful. If you can’t except that you are blinded by some sort of bias and need to maybe listen to more music than the few artists that you think are good. Maybe listen to some different genres. Lupe has always had music with a message and lyrics that mean something sadly most are to stupid to grasp it or hate that he is “preaching.” At least he is original has always had his own lane and done and said what he wanted regardless of what the public or even his fans think. That’s hip-hop that’s a real person. Not some made up image of some “gangsta” “pimp” “balla” or some other fake persona rapping about things they don’t have or don’t do.
Man j.Cole’s album sales are monsterous 700K plus and counting and to think he didn’t have to promote it or drop any radio hit singles all he had to do was produce it himself, rap on it by himself with no featured artist, and just let his loyal fans decide his fate and low and behold j.cole saw huge success for 2014 FHD and im SO glad fans are supporting real hip hop music and 2014 Forest hills drive was one of the most DOPEST real albums of 2014 I’m still hoping for it to sale a million but I’m still happy and its a win as well still at 700k plus it’ll probably max out at 800k when it all said and done solid gold sales right there but i know album sales arent everything but in a way SALES they mean alot still because it shows how much people really care and support u and will ride or die for u and buy your shit when it drops in stores, and not just download it when it gets leaked before release
To the real high hop head on here support that real! We must speak on matters of conscience. Blessings
Why don’t they put the total sales anymore?