Kanye West's newest record Jesus is King has officially been out for a week and the sales numbers are in. According to HipHopNMore, in terms of pure sales, the new record reached 109,668, while including sales and streaming, it hit 276,224.
The album is a new direction for Kanye: Jesus is King is mostly a gospel-inspired album, with zero-cursing. The change hasn't seemed to affect the album's success with these first-week numbers falling in line with the rest of Kanye's recent work. His last record, Ye, earned 208,000 in total, according to Nielsen Music, with 85,000 being in pure album sales.
Across all genre's this puts Kanye's newest effort at sixth in terms of total first-week sales for the year. Above it are Billie Eilish's WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, Ariana Grande's thank u, next, Jonas Brothers' Happiness Begins, Post Malone's Hollywood's Bleeding, and at number one, Taylor Swift's Lover. With Post Malone's newest album being the only hip hop project ahead of Kanye, Jesus is King lands second in the hip hop category.
As for how the album will compare to the rest of Kanye's discography going forward remains to be seen. Will Jesus is King have longevity or will most of these listeners be one-and-done with the album?