For many, the industry’s welcoming of streaming subscription services has seen it combat the evil which was/is illegal downloading.
Alas, the availability of new material on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play often leaves fans with little to no incentive to support their favourite act with pure sale purchases.
What this means for labels? A dependency on its older and more established acts to pull in noteworthy numbers the old fashioned way. For Sony, it’s Adele and Beyonce.
For Universal?
In 2010, Nicki Minaj’s debut set ‘Pink Friday’ opened with 375,000 units in its first chart week and went on to hit the 1 million units sold marker three weeks later.
In 2014, following the unveiling of her sophomore set ‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’, the rapper released her third project ‘The Pinkprint‘ on December 15th.
As of today, that album has sold 1 million units world…in pure sales.
Here’s how she did it.
The slow-burning set sold 685,000 copies by the December of 2015 and was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America when the streams it garnered pushed it to the 2 million units marker.
Unbeknownst to her fans in the U.S, the rapper’s loyalists in the Europe, Asia and Oceania were working just as hard to support Hip-Hop project and have purchased over 300,000 units bringing its global figure to 1 million.
That number glides north of 5 million when streaming is factored into the album’s chart story.
Her latest win comes before the release of her fourth studio album and hours after she celebrated news of Cardi B‘s record-breaking chart feat with the smash hit single ‘Bodak Yellow.’