Controversy is working for Kanye West.
The rapper unleashed ‘Ye’ – the first of two new albums – last week and did so amidst quite the backlash.
Over the last month, the Hip-Hop star the used Twitter as his personal loudspeaker. Indeed, he professed his support for polarizing president Donald Trump, sported a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, and idiotically claimed “slavery was a choice.”
It’s clear that whether loved or loathed, Kanye attracts attention. Case in point his first week sales.
Details below…
Per Billboard, Yeezy has officially earned his eighth #1 album on the Billboard 200. He did so with the following numbers:
208,000
[Sales Plus Streams]
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85,000
[Pure Sales]
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The feat is notable on a number of fronts. It sees Kanye:
- tie Eminem for 2nd most #1 albums amongst Hip-Hop artist (8). The pair are only bested by Jay-Z (14).
- also tie Eminem and The Beatles for the most consecutive #1 albums in a row.
- earn the fifth-highest opening of 2018 so far.
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Kanye’s made a number of super slack moves of late, but it’s clear many – including those swearing off his music publicly – are hitting play in private. Especially given the huge streaming component of his numbers (over 60%).
Will he sustain or will it be a front-loaded affair? Let us know…
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Look, Kanye has a lot of black and non black fans that simply don’t care about what he has to say about anything and are just interested in the brand (music &a clothes) so this doesn’t surprise me
85,000 copies. Never Kanye until now.
??
The landscape continues to change. Nobody is selling what they used to in CDs and downloads.
Damn Cardi sold more than Ye?
I only like half the songs but CONGRATS to Ye… It was actually better than I thought but not as good as he’s capable of
I don’t support anyone who supports a racist president!!
That’s Kanye
85K is really nothing to brag about when your Kanye West & your wife is Kim Kardashian! Call me a hater but this is not a win for him! Let Jay Z do these kind of numbers y’all would be dragging him left & right calling him a flop! At the end of the day he definitely has lost alot of fans bcuz he usually does better numbers than this!
To answer the question posed at the end of this article, sales will drop off and streaming will sustain. More than 100k of the total was from streaming, meaning that Kanye was credited for more than 150 million streams during the reporting week. You don’t get numbers like that repeat action.
Understand that there was no physical album either. Plus he doesn’t have a hit. Imagine if he had a top 10 hit along with a physical copy. His pure sales would probably be around 200-250k. It isn’t always just the musical climate…
Well said
I agree to disagree. Most of the population has a smartphone which they can buy a digital copy of the album. I believe Beyonce, Jay-Z, Kendrick and other artists were able to achieve great numbers before their physical release.
The problem is Kanye tarnished his brand. He’s still a fantastic rapper and a creative genius but with his recent comments about Slavery and his endorsement for Donald Trump, many people like myself are not invested in him anymore.
Girl stfu, she flopped!!!
Dumb ass weack people are doing this! sad were out generation is at! Middle finger to all that supported this trash and your mothers too ~
5th largest debut, do they even make 5th place ribbons?
#Awesome