Kanye West & Nicki Minaj Rule the Chart
Kanye West and Nicki Minaj are the king and queen of Billboard. The hip-hop titans outperformed the competition last week, earning the top two spots on the albums chart.
West’s critically-acclaimed fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 496,000 copies sold in its first week, according to final figures released by Billboard. This is his fourth straight No. 1 album following 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak.
Not to be overshadowed by her “Monster” collaborator, Nicki Minaj put up her own impressive numbers as her debut Pink Friday comes in second place with 375,000. This gives her the second highest one-week sales by a female hip-hop act since Lauryn Hill, who holds the record with 423,000 units sold of 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
You can’t stop Bieber fever. Justin Bieber’s Walmart and Sam’s Club-exclusive set, My Worlds Acoustic, comes in at No. 7 with 115,000, giving him his third top 10 album in a little over a year.
Ne-Yo’s Libra Scale rounds out the top 10 at No. 9 with 112,000 copies, falling short of the opening week sales of his previous three offerings. Lloyd Banks’ H.F.M. 2 (The Hunger for More 2) eats up 44,000 units to enter at No. 25, while Ke$ha’s Cannibal devours the No. 15 spot (74,000).
Many releases were expected to see a boost during the Black Friday shopping weekend, but didn’t meet initial projections.