Much like this week with Chris Brown and Monica, two of Urban music’s most-beloved characters – August Alsina and R. Kelly – faced off in the name of R&B.
Alsina, who dropped his highly anticipated sophomore album ‘This Thing Called Life,’ saw his album greeted to a bevy of critical acclaim (much like its predecessor ‘Testimony’). While the latter-mentioned debuted at #2 to the tune of an impressive 67,000 sold, early reports indicated the former would not be able to claim similar heights as predictions placed it somewhere between 30-35,000 sold its first week. Not too far away, Kelly, with his 13th opus, ‘Buffet,’ was served predictions in the 28-33,000 range. This, after an impassioned plea by the R&B royal for fans to support the genre.
The good news is they must have listened as both Alsina and Kelly exceeded their sales prediction by a notable margin. On the other hand, the bad news appears they may have been so busy listening to Adele‘s ’25,’ they forgot to tell their friends as both R&B acts missed the top 10 of the Billboard 200 all together (a career first for Kelly).
Find out what their final numbers are for their respective first weeks of availability:
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