During Grammys week, Hip Hop album sales surged. The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar saw significant jumps in their standings on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart. Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo did not land on the chart. As of yet, it has only been released for streaming on TIDAL and will supposedly not be available for purchase.
The Weeknd Continues His Sales
The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness charts at #6 this week after falling out of the Top 10 the past few weeks. It saw a 38 percent growth in sales. The Weeknd was nominated for seven Grammy Awards and took home the prize for Best Urban Contemporary Album. He also performed at the ceremony.
Kendrick Lamar Shoots Up The Charts
Kendrick Lamar saw a 229 percent leap in the album sales for To Pimp a Butterfly. The project lands at #16 this week. The Compton, California rapper led the field with 11 Grammy nominations. He took home five awards, sweeping the Rap categories including Best Rap Album. He performed at the ceremony as well.
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Future Has Slight Dropoff
Future’s EVOL has a slight dropoff in sales this week as it lands at #10. The album debuted at #1, making him the fastest rapper ever to have three projects at the top of the charts. What a Time to Be Alive, his joint project with Drake, lands at #32 and Dirty Sprite 2 is now #42 on the chart.
Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 02/18/2016
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.
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#3 Rihanna – ANTI – 79,072 (34,024) [43,215,673]
#6 The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness – 50,638 (25,759) [20,358,145]
#10 Future – EVOL – 39,630 (18,068) [24,496,523]
#11 Kevin Gates – ISLAH– 36,298 (19,648) [15,607,870]
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#12 G-Eazy – When It’s Dark Out – 35,926 (12,621) [19,815,319]
#13 Bryson Tiller – Trapsoul – 35,450 (13,467) [25,876,209]
#16 Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly– 33,270 (24,450) [9,007,716]
#20 Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap – 24,847 (5,814) [16,994,810]
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#24 Flo Rida – My House – 23,299 (2,160) [8,997,357]
#26 Chris Brown – Royalty – 22,288 (12,877) [9,101,938]
