Hip Hop Album Sales: Joey Bada$$, Nicki Minaj, Lupe Fiasco

After two of the most-anticipated albums of the year thus far were released last Tuesday (January 20), the official Soundscan numbers are in and Joey Bada$$ has the best-selling Hip Hop album in the country. Meanwhile, Lupe Fiasco’s latest album broke into the Top 20 at #14 while Nicki Minaj held steady at #6.
Lower down the list, J. Cole fell out of the Top 10 for the first time since his album was released but brought his total sold count to 708,494 after selling another 22,501 units last week.

Joey Bada$$ Debuts At #5

Releasing his debut album on the same day that Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo & Youth and Lil Wayne’s Sorry 4 The Wait 2 dropped, Joey Bada$$ officially has the best-selling Hip Hop album on the Billboard 200. In the span of a single week, B4.Da.$$ clocked 53,990 sales and was streamed more than 3 million times. On top of the streams, Bada$$ sold more than 16,000 single songs from the record and his total album equivalency number reached 57,694 as a result.

Nicki Minaj Holds On At #6

For a second week in a row, Nicki Minaj’s Pinkprint album is at #6 on the charts with the latest numbers nearly replicating her performance last week. Minaj sold another 27,623 units this past week, bringing her total sold count up to 446,029 since the album’s release last month. If she keeps up with her current sales, Minaj is on pace to break the Gold album milestone in just under two weeks.

Lupe Fiasco At #14

While Lupe Fiasco’s latest album sold less than half the number of albums as his last release did in its first week on the shelves, the 39,281 copies of Tetsuo & Youth Lu pushed this past week were enough to help him into the Top 20 at #14. The album was also streamed 2,382,138 times which helped Lupe’s total activity number peak at 42,458.

Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Hip Hop & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 01/25/2015

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.
#5. Joey Bada$$ - B4.Da.$$ - 57,694 (53,990) [3,088,426]
#6. Nicki Minaj - Pinkprint - 53,580 (27,623) [11,825,903]
#10. Mark Ronson - Uptown Special - 48,582 (9,640) [6,312,689]
#14. Lupe Fiasco - Tetsuo & Youth - 42,458 (39,281) [2,382,138]
#16. J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive - 31,997 (22,501) [8,148,716]
#24. Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife - 19,056 (7,842) [5,390,523]
#32. Pitbull - Globalization - 14,590 (3,432) [3,189,395]
#41. Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show - 11,354 (9,710) [1,299,602]
#42. Iggy Azalea - Reclassified - 11,310 (2,015) [4,067,146]
#46. Beyonce - Beyonce - 10,598 (3,831) [4,290,313]
Last Week's Sales