Kanye West‘s impressive streak of consecutive number one albums has been broken by none other than Taylor Swift after his and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 debuted at number two on the Billboard 200.
Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department returned to the top spot on the chart for its 14th non-consecutive week on Sunday (August 11) after selling 142,000 equivalent units over the past week, bringing its total to over 5.3 million.
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Vultures 2 moved 107,000 equivalent units in its first week, per Billboard, and would have become Kanye’s 12th consecutive number one album if it had landed in pole position.
It is technically the first Kanye album to not debut atop the Billboard 200 since his landmark debut The College Dropout in 2004.
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Kids See Ghosts, his 2018 joint effort with Kid Cudi, previously missed out on the top spot but that album was credited to their duo of the same name and didn’t bear Kanye West’s name.
2012’s Cruel Summer also debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 but that project also doesn’t count as a Kanye album as it was billed as a G.O.O.D. Music compilation.
Taylor Swift has officially ended Kanye West's streak of #1 albums on the Billboard 200.
All of his projects credited to 'Kanye West' since 'Late Registration' had debuted at #1. pic.twitter.com/jjvVhZhfx8
— chart data (@chartdata) August 11, 2024
Despite missing out on a number one debut, Vultures 2 still far outsold its initial projections.
The much-delayed project was originally expected to earn around 68,000 first-week units but saw a late burst of streams and purchases in the second half of the week as Ye and Ty made continual changes to the album and rolled out various digitial deluxe editions featuring different bonus songs.
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Comparatively, Vultures 1 topped the Bilboard 200 with 148,000 first-week units in February, with the Playboi Carti and Rich The Kid-assisted “Carnival” also reaching the top spot on the Hot 100.
The song marked two major milestones for the Chicago rap legend, making him the first rapper in history to top the Hot 100 in three different decades (2000s, 2010s and 2020s), as well as having the longest run of number one hits among rappers, a streak that dates back to 2004 with “Slow Jamz.”
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If Vultures 2 had matched the success of the first collaborative project, then Kanye would have moved up to joint fourth all-time on the list of artists with most number one albums on the Billboard 200.
The Beatles are in the lead with 19, while Swift and JAY-Z both have 14 and Drake follows closely behind with 13.
Despite the relative commercial success of the Vultures albums, both projects are under threat of being removed from streaming services by Atlantic Records/, according to Kanye West.
In a text message shared on social media last week, Ye’s manager John Monopoly wrote: “Co-head of Atlantic Julie Greenwald just called me. She just got fired. She said the new head is not going to give us a grace period to handle Atlantic’s compensation.
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“She suggested that I let Too Lost and Create know that 40% of all revenue from V1 and V2 needs to be paid to Atlantic. She’s saying that if we don’t handle immediately Atlantic will issue take downs for both albums. Pls advise.”
Blasting the label, Kanye wrote over the screenshot: “This is what ‘they’ do to independent artists.”
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While Vultures 1 and Vultures 2 were both released independently through Kanye’s YZY imprint, the dispute stems from Ty Dolla $ign being signed to Atlantic as a solo artist, meaning they have rights to his work.
Both albums are still available on Spotify, Apple Music and TIDAL as of writing.
