Drake's new mixtape, Dark Lane Demo Tapes, could potentially not be debuting at No. 1, if country superstar Kenny Chesney beats him for the top spot with his new album, Here and Now. When Drake dropped his new tape at midnight on Friday, it was, for the most part, a surprise. Although there were whispers of a new Drake project dropping the day before, he had put in zero promo work for DLDT, which is comprised of both previously released or leaked tracks, and some new, never-before-heard joints. The official numbers will be in next week, but while Drake is almost always a shoe-in for a No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, he's got some close competition this time in the form of a veteran country singer.
According to a report from HitsDailyDouble on Saturday (May 2nd), Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes is projected to move between 230,000 to 255,000 equivalent album units, while Kenny Chesney's expected to rake in 220,000 to 235,000 with his new album, Here and Now. These close quarters mean that Drizzy is at risk of failing to top the charts if Kenny does exceptionally well, and those country music fans are persistent. In fact, a whopping 210-220k of the Tennessee artist's units are from pure album sales.
If Drake does end up losing to Mr. Chesney, that would break his undefeated streak of No. 1 solo debuts thus far. As pointed out by XXL, every single solo Drake project since 2009's So Far Gone, along with his 2015 joint mixtape with Future, What A Time To Be Alive, up until now has debuted in the top spot. The official results will be announced next week, so fingers crossed for hip hop fans that Drake comes out on top.