Tyler, the Creator and Meek Mill debut high on the 'Billboard 200'
This was a good week for hip hop on the album charts.
While Lana Del Rey snatched the top spot with her Lust For Life album, both Tyler, the Creator, and Meek Mill were right on her heels with their respective releases.
The Odd Future head honcho reached number two on the current Billboard 200 chart with Flower Boy. Featuring appearances from Lil Wayne, Frank Ocean and Jaden Smith, the album, which racked up 104k in album-equivalent units sold, also brought in the biggest first week sales ever for the Cali rapper.
Wins & Losses, the third solo album from Philly spitter, Meek Mill, scanned 87k album-equivalent units, and is locked in at number 3 on the album chart. Mill’s last album, Dreams Worth More Than Money, debuted at No. 1, selling just under 250k in its opening week.
The top three of this week’s Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) and the Building Sales charts – which tallies only digital and physical albums – sales are identical with Del Rey, Tyler and Meek leading the way.
Several Linkin Park releases including their latest, One More Light, as well as career defining Meteora and Hybrid Theory are present on this week’s chart. One More Light charted the highest at No. 6, while three other albums from the Grammy Award-winning band hit the top 15. Lead singer, Chester Bennington died July 20 as a result of suicide.
Elsewhere on the charts there is Golden, Romeo Santos’ most recent offering, which lands at number 10. Perfect Timing, the collaborative project from The Weeknd’s artist, Nav and everyone’s current favorite producer, Metro Boomin also makes an appearance in the top 15.
Some were calling into question Billboard’s decision to allow free streams to count towards an album’s placement on the Billboard 200. Meek’s Wins & Losses, which was initially projected to debut at No. 1, may have benefited from the decision. The album featuring production from hitmakers like DJ Mustard and Honorable C.N.O.T.E. had been offered for free via Tidal to non-subscribers of the service. The free streams were included in the project’s final first week tally.
Tyler took to Twitter to offer is thoughts on the controversy. “DAMN TIDAL GOT ALBUMS PLAYING BEFORE A PAYWALL WHICH MAKES ME THINK NIGGAS CAN HAVE BOTS SPIKING UP PLAYS FOR BILLBOARD ON FRIDAY HMM,” he said in the now deleted Tweets.
All Hip Hop reports that Wins & Losses had already been outpacing Flower Boy in sales prior to the album being given away to non-Tidal subscribers free of charge.