Kendrick Lamar capped off his biggest year since 2017, more or less, with the surprise release of his new album GNX, but its commercial success is no shocker. According to Luminate, it now officially debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 1 as his fifth number one LP (all consecutive). However, its official numbers per Billboard and Luminate are a little bit lower than what final first week sales projections via HITS Daily Double indicated. Per this new report, the new project sold 319K album-equivalent units in its first sales tracking week as opposed to the projected 325K from earlier this week.
Furthermore, Kendrick Lamar's GNX now officially cinched the sixth-biggest debut week for an album in 2024 and the third-biggest streaming week for any LP this year. Interestingly enough, Billboard seems to suggest in their report that physical CD, cassette and vinyl sales for this new record did not count toward this first tracking week, presumably because these are pre-orders. Its pure album sales this week (which accounted for around 32K album-equivalent units) are thanks to the digital download available for purchase.
Kendrick Lamar's GNX Debuts At No. 1 On Billboard 200
With nearly 380 million streams in its first week, Kendrick Lamar's GNX now ranks as the biggest streaming week for any R&B or hip-hop album this year. It's also the second-biggest debut streaming week, only behind Taylor Swift's THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. For the record, that album's first and second weeks account for the biggest streaming weeks of 2024, and K.Dot is right behind at number three. This, of course, adds to the massive success that he saw earlier this year thanks to his Drake battle cuts, whose sales are also a pretty controversial topic right now.
Meanwhile, that legal action by Drake against Universal Music Group and Spotify for allegedly inflating the success "Not Like Us" is not as clear as it could be, despite all the theories and interpretations. But Kendrick Lamar has far more important things to celebrate, and then again, he probably focuses on much more than just numbers. Still, seeing this resonate so successfully must be a very satisfying experience.