The Billboard 200 has a new #1, as Imagine Dragons have knocked Drake’slatest album down to the runner-up position. The latest sales report still brings good news for the Toronto rapper as Drake has passed the required numbers for a Gold album certification, adding on another 129,000 sales this period. At the same time, Drake’s fellow Young Money superstar Nicki Minaj made her way back into the Top 10 after falling to #12 last week.
Lower down the list, J. Cole holds on tight at #16, Ne-Yo sees a three-spot boost and Rae Sremmurd gain back 10 spots from last week’s dip.
Drake Breaks Gold, Falls To #2
After his surprise release propelled him to the top of the charts last week, Drake’s If Youre Reading This Its Too Lateofficially broke the Gold record milestone with his latest sales report. The album, which has raised questions about Drake’s current status at Cash Money, sold another 129,118 units as of Sunday (February 22). The latest numbers push Drake well over the half-a-million mark with 623,864 albums sold in a span of less than two weeks.
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Meanwhile, Drake’s streaming numbers are far and away the highest on the charts with more than three times the streams of the closest runner-up. In the same sales period, Drake pushed more than 260,000 single song sales from the album.
Nicki Minaj Reenters The Top 10
Following a single week outside of the Top 10, Nicki Minaj is back up to #9 despite putting up less impressive numbers than last week. Minaj finally saw her album push past the Gold certification last week and put up another 16,726 album sales over the most recent sales period. The new numbers bring the The Pinkprint’stotal to 525,748 albums sold since its release late in 2014.
J. Cole Stays Steady At #16
While he seems to have fallen out of the Top 10 for good, J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Driveheld on to its #16 spot for another week with just over 17,000 albums sold. Now with 785,477 copies of his third album out the door, Cole saw the project streamed more than 6.5 million times over the past week.
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Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 02/22/2015
Note: The first number below is this week’s “total album equivalent units” count, an intersection of album sales, single sales, and streams implemented by Billboard’s new rating system. A pure album sales figure is available in bold in parenthesis and information about each album’s streaming count is available in brackets.
#2. Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late– 187,225 (129,118) [48,028,377]
#9. Nicki Minaj – The Pinkprint – 41,445 (16,726) [11,008,192]
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#12. Mark Ronson – Uptown Special – 35,041 (4,944) [5,937,227]
#16. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – 25,335 (17,366) [6,526,738]
#21. Ne-Yo – Non-Fiction – 16,512 (9,575) [2,565,699]
#25. Pitbull – Globalization – 14,635 (2,945) [3,743,652]
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#29. Rae Sremmurd – Sremmlife – 13,894 (4,587) [4,967,416]
#31. Raheem Devaughn – Love Sex Passion – 13,099 (12,639) [76,381]
#36. Beyonce – Beyonce – 11,861 (5,068) [4,068,714]
#51. Kid Ink – Full Speed– 8,977 (5,202) [2,592,131]
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For additional Drake coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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