Eminem Had The Highest Album Sales In 2018

BYAron A.73.1K Views
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Eminem performs onstage during the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Awards which broadcasted live on TBS, TNT, and truTV at The Forum on March 11, 2018 in Inglewood, California.
Another dub for Slim Shady.

A lot of legends came out in 2018 to bless us with new music. Jay-Z teamed up with Beyonce for Everything Is Love, Nas delivered his underwhelming eleventh studio album, Nasir and Eminem surprised the world with Kamikaze. Em dropped the album without warning -- a tactic that very few can pull off successfully. Em proved to be the most successful at it in 2018. According to Buzz Angle Music's 2018 Year-end report, Kamikaze was the highest selling album of the year.

Despite being from the pre-streaming era, Eminem is still bodying the competition. Eminem dominated 2018 with 755,027 album sales while BTS followed with 603,307 albums. Kamikaze, Em's eleventh studio album, helped his high album sales this year. The album earned 373,067 sales meaning the nearly 400K of his album units are due to his back catalog. It should also be noted that Revival dropped in December 2017 so there's a good chance that album also brought in some major sales numbers for Em this year.

Em's run this year also proved to be a success in the streaming world. Em also had the fourth highest streams among many artists this year. Drake held the top spot while Post Malone and XXXTENTACION held the second and third spots, respectively. Em garnered more than 2.5B on-demand audio streams throughout 2018 with Kamikaze drawing in 760M streams.

Even with his 2018 numbers, Em still hasn't announced a new North American tour in support of Kamikaze. Hopefully, that's something he'll announce in the near future. 


About The Author
Aron A. is a features editor for HotNewHipHop. Beginning his tenure at HotNewHipHop in July 2017, he has comprehensively documented the biggest stories in the culture over the past few years. Throughout his time, Aron’s helped introduce a number of buzzing up-and-coming artists to our audience, identifying regional trends and highlighting hip-hop from across the globe. As a Canadian-based music journalist, he has also made a concerted effort to put spotlights on artists hailing from North of the border as part of Rise & Grind, the weekly interview series that he created and launched in 2021. Aron also broke a number of stories through his extensive interviews with beloved figures in the culture. These include industry vets (Quality Control co-founder Kevin "Coach K" Lee, Wayno Clark), definitive producers (DJ Paul, Hit-Boy, Zaytoven), cultural disruptors (Soulja Boy), lyrical heavyweights (Pusha T, Styles P, Danny Brown), cultural pioneers (Dapper Dan, Big Daddy Kane), and the next generation of stars (Lil Durk, Latto, Fivio Foreign, Denzel Curry). Aron also penned cover stories with the likes of Rick Ross, Central Cee, Moneybagg Yo, Vince Staples, and Bobby Shmurda.
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