Kendrick Lamar was right, “real people want real music, the Jig Is Up.” With A$AP Rocky’s album leaking incredibly early, the very solid debut studio effort from the Harlemite continues to sell. All the albums making our Charts this week are featured on some kind of “Best Of” list, and as far as Hip Hop/R&B sales are concerned, fans are purchasing quality projects from artists.
For awhile there it looked as though we would have to rebrand this weekly piece as a look at only the Top R&B sales, as hip hop sales were underachieving, but some of the best rap albums released in the past 12 months dropped recently and they continue to stay on the Charts. Eight different artists and albums had notable sales with only three of those being from R&B, and all three were stellar albums of the genre. Take a look at this week’s Charts, and don’t worry if it’s just a quick glance because you can expect many of these albums to stay put for weeks to come.
1) A$AP Rocky – Long.Live.A$AP: At this rate, Rocky could have had his album leak three months in advance and it would still be selling. After topping Billboard’s Top 200 last week, he slips to the No. 6 spot after gathering another 37k units to his total. Will be interesting to see if this has staying power on the charts.
2) Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Heist: 14/18, 19,510, 11% - On the heels of “Thrift Shop” going Double Platinum (which is truly unheard of for indie artists in the current sales landscape), Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are back near the top of the charts by gathering nearly 20,000 more sales, and dropping only 11% from the previous week.
3) Alicia Keys – Girl On Fire: 18/21, 17,578, 14% Miss Keys maintains a steady pace and actually moves up from No. 23 last week to No. 18 this week. Girl On Fire notches 17,578 more in sales.
4) Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city: 20/14, 17,125, 8% Don’t expect to see GKMC go anywhere soon as K.Dot preps the release of “Poetic Justice” as a single, and expect a video with Drake who will soon be dropping music of his own. GKMC drops six spots and goes from No. 14 to No. 20, but only drops 8% in sales.
5) Rihanna – Unapologetic: 21/13, 17,052, 13% - Rih’s first No. 1 album (still surprising to hear) is still going strong, as seems to be the case with R&B these days. Chalk up another 17,052 units for her seventh studio release.
Rounding out the charts are two hip hop and one R&B album. T.I.’s “comeback” album, and first Trouble Man installment continues to impress adding another 13,591 to sales. At first the news of The Weeknd re-releasing his mixtapes as a retail project with only a few new tracks sounded like it would not sell, but it did, and continues too. Below the 10k mark in sales, Trilogy hangs in the Top 50 at No. 46. Globe trekking stoner turned family man, Wiz Khalifa’s sophomore studio album adds another 7,664, but still falls well short of Rolling Papers, as this album does not have the cross-over hit like “Black and Yellow” (which isn’t a bad thing.)