This week there was a race between Ludacris and Janet Jackson for the top spot on the charts. Although many thought Janet had it in the bag, Ludacris toppled the megastar on the charts. Ludacris‘ Release Therapy barely edged out Janet Jackson‘s 20 Y.O. by 13,014 sales. Luda pushed just under 310,000 units while Janet opened at slightly over 295,000 sold in her first week.
Elsewhere, Lupe Fiasco took a small dive after the Soundscan screw up of last week. After Food & Liquor opened up as the #1 Hip Hop album on the charts (over 80k sold), this week finds Lupe pushing 30k+ units for a total of 112,286 units sold which places him at #32 this week (#8 last week). His rival on the charts, Chingy‘s Hoodstar, sold just under 35k to put his total at 112,244 and places him at #23 this week (#9 last week).
Rick Ross is still pushing it. Port of Miami should be gold next week with a total of 496,451 (28,296 and #34 this week) while Justin Timberlake has crossed the platinum plateau. Futuresex/LoveSounds sold another 150,000 to put his total at 1,061,119 as he holds steady at #5. Beyonce is slowly getting to platinum with B’Day‘s 65k sold putting her at just over 860k sold to date (#11).
Next week we’ll see how well Sleepy Brown holds up against the return of Monica.
