rap albums on the billboard chart

Yeah! It is that time of the week again, when I give you a run-down of rap albums on the billboard top 200 album chart. PLIES is at the top this week with his fourth album, GOONAFFILIATED. Even though he is at number 5 on the charts, and officially the best selling rap album on the charts, I think I am a bit disappointed. I follow plies on twitter, and following the days of the drop, all his fans were all about "sold out at target", "sold out at WALL-MART", blah! blah! So, I was of the impression that the album was going to do very good numbers. Okay, I considered the climate of the music industry, and the fact that album sales are not what they used to be, so i pitched him at at least over 200k, but was...well, i don't want to say how i felt. Anyway, plies sold 56,000 copies of his "goonaffiliated" album in the first week in stores. To all the plies fans, please i am not hating, and i think the album is good, but i was just thinking with all the noise, and all the pre-album release marketing that PLIES had been doing on twitter, that he would actually move more units than his last three albums. At least, all his albums have sold more than 100k in their first week in stores.

B.O.B comes up next at number 18 on the billboard top 200 albums. His album(THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY RAY) has sold 229,000 copies so far. I listened to his album the other day, and i can say it is very different from what you are used to. I think HIP HOP is changing. The southern reign is over; and it has given way for the...i don't know what to call it. I don't have a word for it, but it is not gangster rap and it is not CRUNK; it is what the KID CUDI's and the DRAKE's and the KANYE's are doing. I think it is cool, at least they still have message in their music, whether they are rapping or singing.

NAS and DAMIAN MARLEY come in this week at number 31, with 13,000 copies sold this week of their collaborative album, DISTANT RELATIVES. Considering how good this album is, and how much praise it has been getting from BLOGGERS all over the internet, you would wonder why it has not sold more than it has. It is at a domestic total of 113,000 copies sold so far; but has sold in excess of a quarter of a million worldwide.

LUDACRIS is 10 spots below "nas" and "damian marley", at number 41 on the billboard top 200 albums. His 7th album, BATTLE OF THE SEXES has sold 452,000 copies to date, but moved 11,000 copies this week. I think it is a great album, and shows the world more of luda's versitility.

Next week numbers will surely embarrass all the other rap albums on the chart, as DRAKE's "thank me later" album would have done its full seven days in stores, and we would get the official first week sales of the new kid on the block. I was listening to the album before i came up to write this post, and i can't really rate it right now, maybe after i have heard it like 2 more times.
From its first day in stores, it has been predicted to sell between 400-500k. Let us wait and see.