Eminem's newest Kamikaze album may have been a surprise, but the numbers it's projected to put up on the board are not.
Hits Daily Double reports that the project will likely pull in 200,000 at the minimum within its first week, taking into account that Kamikaze physical releases have not yet rolled out. Last year, Em's Revival pulled 267,000 units in its debut run, with 197,000 of those coming from traditional sales.
More tangible metrics can be observed through streaming platforms at the moment with Kamikaze occupying the Top 3 tracks on Apple Music with "The Ringer," the Joyner Lucas-assisted"Lucky You," and "Greatest." In total, eight of the Top 10 tracks and 13 of the Top 20 all belong to Eminem. Over on the iTunes charts, Kamikaze is currently the No. 1 album with four of the Top 10 tracks being his as well. Spotify's United States' tally has Em with the Top 3 songs with 13 sitting in the Top 20 while the album sits as the No. 1 digital album at Amazon.
It's all with good reason, too. Thursday night marked the unprecedented arrival of Em's Kamikaze in which he essentially came for the jugular of anyone in sight with his producer Illadaproducer telling Rolling Stone that Kamikaze marks the return of Slim Shady.
“Right away he comes out just blowing bad, spittin’. This is Eminem! Top five, dead or alive. I want to hear him go bad. And I got what I was looking for,” Illa told the publication. “A lot of Em’s more refined fans [...] they liked Revival. I liked Revival too. People wanted Slim Shady. […] So he went back in, and that’s why eight months, nine months later, we got Kamikaze.”