Hip Hop Album Sales: Drake, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole

    The Billboard 200 has a new #1, as Imagine Dragons have knocked Drake’s latest album down to the runner-up position. The latest sales report still brings good news for the Toronto rapper as Drake has passed the required numbers for a Gold album certification, adding on another 129,000 sales this period. At the same time, Drake’s fellow Young Money superstar Nicki Minaj made her way back into the Top 10 after falling to #12 last week.

    Lower down the list, J. Cole holds on tight at #16, Ne-Yo sees a three-spot boost and Rae Sremmurd gain back 10 spots from last week’s dip.

    Drake Breaks Gold, Falls To #2

    After his surprise release propelled him to the top of the charts last week, Drake’s If Youre Reading This Its Too Late officially broke the Gold record milestone with his latest sales report. The album, which has raised questions about Drake’s current status at Cash Money, sold another 129,118 units as of Sunday (February 22). The latest numbers push Drake well over the half-a-million mark with 623,864 albums sold in a span of less than two weeks.

    Meanwhile, Drake’s streaming numbers are far and away the highest on the charts with more than three times the streams of the closest runner-up. In the same sales period, Drake pushed more than 260,000 single song sales from the album.

    Nicki Minaj Reenters The Top 10

    Following a single week outside of the Top 10, Nicki Minaj is back up to #9 despite putting up less impressive numbers than last week. Minaj finally saw her album push past the Gold certification last week and put up another 16,726 album sales over the most recent sales period. The new numbers bring the The Pinkprint’s total to 525,748 albums sold since its release late in 2014.

    J. Cole Stays Steady At #16

    While he seems to have fallen out of the Top 10 for good, J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive held on to its #16 spot for another week with just over 17,000 albums sold. Now with 785,477 copies of his third album out the door, Cole saw the project streamed more than 6.5 million times over the past week.

    Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 02/22/2015

    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.

    #2. Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – 187,225 (129,118) [48,028,377]

    #9. Nicki Minaj – The Pinkprint – 41,445 (16,726) [11,008,192]

    #12. Mark Ronson – Uptown Special – 35,041 (4,944) [5,937,227]

    #16. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – 25,335 (17,366) [6,526,738]

    #21. Ne-Yo – Non-Fiction – 16,512 (9,575) [2,565,699]

    #25. Pitbull – Globalization – 14,635 (2,945) [3,743,652]

    #29. Rae Sremmurd – Sremmlife – 13,894 (4,587) [4,967,416]

    #31. Raheem Devaughn – Love Sex Passion – 13,099 (12,639) [76,381]

    #36. Beyonce – Beyonce – 11,861 (5,068) [4,068,714]

    #51. Kid Ink – Full Speed – 8,977 (5,202) [2,592,131]

    Last Week’s Sales

    For additional Drake coverage, watch the following DX Daily:

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    43 thoughts on “Hip Hop Album Sales: Drake, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole

      1. No. Hip-hop is not Drake. He’s just one rapper in a genre of music with millions. No Drake, hip-hop still exists. It has existed without him and will continue doing so when he’s out the game.

      2. Actually agree with you for once. Drake is great but you can’t forget birdman, wayne (back in his cash money days 90’s-2014) mc hammer, vanilla ice, rick ross, kid ink, 2 chainz, and many other dope rappers.

      3. Again, Bryan Williams, aka Birdman, has nothing to do with the Birdman film, which is about Michael Keaton playing a superhero. The only thing Birdman and the film have in common is the name, that’s it. Do you even pay attention at all?

      4. Birdman was indeed a superhero like figure for saving hiphop in the 90’s and 2000’s. The film parallels it by showing him wanting to expand into broadway.

      5. No. Batman is a superhero, Superman is a hero, The Flash is a superhero, Spider-Man is a superhero, Captain America is a superhero, Birdman the rapper is not a superhero and he didn’t save hip-hop, he destroyed it. Birdman the film has nothing to do with Birdman’s life. They are two unrelated, separate things.

      6. Birdman is a superhero. He saved hiphop by making the music focus more on the lyrics than the hooks. It changed the industry for the better and he even got to appear in a spiderman comic. Birdman the film parrleled that but this time making it about film.

      7. Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit. Birdman is no superhero. He destroyed hip-hop and made the industry worse. Make the music focus more on the lyrics than hooks? LOL that’s a joke because he never did that. He was part of the reason why rappers don’t focus on lyrics, especially when he only talks about money. He never appeared in a Spider-Man comic, he appeared in a special edition cover, not the same thing. Birdman the film doesn’t parallel anything about Birdman the rapper because it has nothing to do with him.

      8. Birdman never sounds pretentious like dr dre. Crap rappers are all pretenious. You clearly caught feelings. And the birdman film does indeed portray him as a hero.

      9. Birdman is pretentious and Dre is not. You’re the one catching feelings, not me. Birdman the film doesn’t portray Birdman the rapper at all, it has nothing to do with him.

      10. “Yes it does bitch. I make more money than you so shut up.” No, it does not. Film has nothing to do with him. They only share a name, but they’re not connected. Accept that and your life will be better. You don’t even have a job, so you don’t make more money than me.

    1. Dam nikki in 2012 u was the wm girl, wtf happen to u? Gimmick rab its course witg how trends are so vibrant these days

      1. AMEN!!!!!! Drake’s best songs happen to b the rnb ones………….. karaoke,shut it down,hold on we going home,find your love, doing it wrong,take care…… He should stick to rnb because he’s a wack rapper but good rnb artiste

      1. You got jokes. Eminem and Dre are not villains (life isn’t a comic book) and they don’t make pop music, only hip-hop.

    2. Let me get this straight j cole sold more than nicki this week but since she got more streams she higher on the charts if it wasn’t for streaming she wouldn’t be gold right now

      1. exactly. its kinda sad. streaming a fucking album for free should not contribute toward album sales. idk why billboard is doing that now

      2. No. She would still be gold. Her gold certification comes from pure sales only. Streams have nothing to do with it. Streams only add to the numbers. If you wanna count streams to her actual album sales, she’d be gold a long time ago. What are you talking about?

      3. We have a fan trying to justify a flop man sit yo ass down she only gold because of streams what are you talking about

      4. Streams do not count towards album certification stop acting dumb you damn well know that! if streams were counted both her and Cole would be approaching platinum already or crossed that mark!

    3. I used to love coming onto these pages to check sales, now I usually don’t even bother, I can never figure out what number is what. Can you not figure out a way in which you can present this information in a clearer manner? I just want to know how many albums each artist has sold altogether.

    4. Big Sean (Def Jam) 140-150k SPS, 120-130k sales.
      Kid Rock (Warner Bros.) 125-130k SPS, 120-125k sales
      Chris Brown & Tyga (RCA) 70-75k SPS, 50-55k sales
      Led Zeppelin (Swan Song/WMG) 35-37k SPS, 34-36k sales
      Red (Provident) 35-37k SPS, 34-36k sales
      Mat Kearney (Republic) 28-30k SPS, 27-29k sales

    5. Already got laid. Still don’t like Birdman, who doesn’t have a film.” No you didn’t, my friend (who hated birdman at first), had sex the first time and now loves his music.

      1. I did. That last shit is a lie. There’s no way sex can change your opinions on things. Get tht magic bullshit out of here.

    6. Already got laid. Still don’t like Birdman, who doesn’t have a film.” No you didn’t, my friend had sex the first time and now loves his music.

    7. Drake went gold with no physical copy in stores, I suppose he might be one of the first to do that. Think Beyoncé was the first, I think the physical didn’t drop till after the digital had been out at least a week.

    8. thank god we have someone like nicki speaking to our youth about the importance of getting her ass eaten properly by a real nigga

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