Rap Albums on The Billboard Chart

Whiz Khalifa's latest album, Rolling Papers sold 59,000 copies this week, bringing the total sales of the album in 2 weeks to 257,000 copies. That is half way to GOLD status; i wish him luck on getting to 500k copies sold.

Jim Jones just dropped a new album titled Capo, and he did 21,000 in stores after a full week. I never even really heard about this album; that is all i can say about it.

Lupe Fiasco's Lasers sold 17k, this week, and is now at a total of 320,000 copies sold. Snoops Doggumentary sold 14,000 copies this week, bringing the total after 2 weeks to 64,000 copies sold.

Reakwon's Shaolin vs Wu-Tang album sold 2,700 copies this week, bringing the total sales to 52,000 copies sold.

Rap Albums on Billboard Charts

New comer, Whiz Khalifa is at the top this week, selling 198,000 copies of his new album, Rolling Papers. His is the second biggest selling rap album opening for this year- lupe fiasco's lasers sold 204k copies in it's first week last month. I still love that Black And Yellow song, but i have not really heard enough material from him to say much about him.

Snoop Dogg is next with his new album, Doggumentary, which sold 51,000 copies after 7 days in stores. I think his sales have been on the low lately, so this isn't really a surprise. Old rappers don't sell that much anymore, even when they try to align with new rappers...maybe asides from Jay-Z, and maybe Nas. Busta Rhymes tries so hard, and still doesn't move huge units. When i say old rappers, i am referring to rappers that started rapping during the Biggie and Pac Era...the early 90's.

Lupe Fiasco's Laser's album sold 23,000 copies this week, bringing the total to 303,000 copies sold after a month in stores. I hope he can make it to 500k, because it would be disappointing for him to have a big first week sales and not make it to GOLD status.

Sorry, but i do not see what people like about this next artist- E-40. Anyway, his new double CD...or more liek two separate CD's that dropped the same day last week sold a cumulative 27,000 copies. Revenue Retrieving; Graveyard shift sold 14k, and Revenue Retrieving; Overtime Shift sold 13k.

Reakwon's Shaolin vs Wu-Tang sold 4,600 copies this week, bringing the total to 50k sold so far. And Pharoache Monch' W.A.R (We Are Renegades) album sold 4k this week, and is now at a total of 14,000 copies sold.

Rap Albums on The Billboard Charts

Lupe Fiasco's LASERS album is still the number 1 rap album on the charts, but is no longer the number one album over-all on the top 200 album charts. The album dropped 75% in sales, and sold 47,000 copies this week, bringing the total after 2 weeks in stores to 251,000 copies. I think that is still looking good, considering the fact that that is half way to gold status, and a lot of rappers nowadays don't even sell that much their entire album sales.

Next up is Nicki Minaj's PINK FRIDAY album. She is still popping, still a "burning match" as Lil Kim said, although we don't know how next year or the one after would be for her. But right now, let us celebrate her success. Her debut album sold 25,000 copies this week, and now stands at a grand total of 1,239,000 copies sold.

Recovery from Eminem is up next with 20k sold this week. Eminem's 6th album is now at a total of 3,737,000 copies sold. He is moving towards the 4 million in u.s, but has far surpassed that internationally. He has sold over 7 million copies of the album internationally.

My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy, the album from Kanye west sold 11,000 copies this week, and the album sales is now at 1,085,000. Reakwon's new album, Shaolin vs Wu-Tang, sold 9,400 this week, and now at a total of 38,000 copies. Rick Ross has popped back up on the charts and his Teflon Don album sold 4,400 copies this week, and is now at a total of 595,000 sold. And the Christian rapper, Lacre's Rehab album sold 2,600 copies this week, to put him at a total of 87,000 copies sold so far.

Lupe Fiasco Ready For Nationwide Tour

After dropping the number one album in the country last week, selling 204k copies of his LASERS album, lupe fiasco is ready to tour. And he has announced the tour dates, which would begin on March 27. I think that is great, and i know he is the happiest man right now. Touring would do him a lot of good- treat his fans, get him more fans, and further boost the sales of his album- past and present.

Below are the tour dates-
Lupe Fiasco Tour Dates:

Mar. 27: Los Angeles, CA (DUB Car Show - LA Convention Cntr.)
Mar. 31: Durham, NC (Duke University)
Apr. 1: Ann Arbor, MI (University Of Michigan)
Apr. 13: Albany, NY (SUNY Albany - Washington Ave. Armory)
Apr. 16: Keene, NH (Keene State College)
Apr. 19: Oxford, OH (Miami University)
Apr. 21: Phoenix, AZ (Mesa Amphitheater)
Apr. 24: New York, NY (Roseland Ballroom)
Apr. 25: New York, NY (Roseland Ballroom)
Apr. 26: New Haven, CT (Yale University)
Apr. 28: Bristol, RI (Roger Williams University)
Apr. 29: University Park, PA (Penn State University)
May 1: Baltimore, MD (Meriweather Post)
May 6: New Orleans, (LA Congo Square--Appearing with Performance w/Band)
May 7: Boise, ID (Boise State University)
May 11: Lewiston, ME (Bates College - Grey Gym)


I think, right after he gets off touring, he should rest for about a month, and then shoot another video. Then start preparing for a worldwide tour.

Lupe Fiasco Reacts to Lasers Number 1 Chart Position

It is no longer news that Lupe Fiasco's long awaited LASERS album is finally out, and that it debuted at number 1 on the billboard top 200 albums. That means it is the number one (best selling) album for this week in the country of U.S.A. I think that is a great achievement for any rapper, not to talk of a very conscious rapper. I think he needs to be popping some champagne bottles right now. And tho think this is a person that the label (atlantic records) wasn't paying attention to. They preferred to put their money on B.O.B. No disrespect to bobby ray, but The Adventures of Bobby Ray sold just 80k in its first week, with all the commercial singles he dropped, and lupe's LASERS did 204k first week. Now, who is smiling all the way to the bank? Who is laughing last?

Anyway, read the about Lupe's reaction as told by hiphopdx.com below-

As previously reported, Lupe Fiasco began the week atop the sales charts after selling 204,000 copies of his third album, Lasers. According to Lupe, his doctor has him on vocal rest, so in lieu of an interview, he took to Twitter and responded to the news with a rhyme composed as a series of tweets, writing the following:

“Love got me thru it / Best fans ever made the whole world care / Had 51st & 6th looking like Tahrir Square / Took Gaza Strip's politics / And put them number one and shit / Took the myth that conscious don’t equal commercial / And mothafuckin’ pummeled it / Apologize for dumbing it / But look what has become of it / All Black Everything / Some old white southern woman humming it…”

The Chicago emcee addressed his previous statements about the emotional toll creating the album caused, referring to what seemed to be a thinly veiled reference to suicide on “Beautiful Lasers” by saying, “From the backseats of phantoms I thought of leaving thru suicide doors.”

There were also mentions of the Fiasco Friday protest, a short-lived feud with RapRadar.com and admission that Lupe modified the stance he took on “Dumb It Down” in hopes of repairing his strained relationship with Atlantic records. All told, the bars amounted to a total of nine Twitter messages, including condolences for Nate Dogg and those affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.


and there it will remain, for atleast another week, right at number 1, hahaha yeah nigguh, stay strong Japan, Nate Dogg REST IN PEACE!!!
about 19 hours ago
Retweeted by 100+ people via web
Lupe Fiasco
LupeFiasco
 

Lupe Fiasco's Lasers is The Top Rap Album on The Billboard Charts

Lupe Fiasco is untop this week with his third album Lasers. The album that took much effort before being released as Atlantic record didn't want to get it out till some 200,000 lupe fans signed a petition against the record label. It is happy to know that those same fans bought the album. The album sold 204,000 copies in its first week. I think that is massive for a conscious rapper like lupe, and for this climate.

Reakwon's new album- Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tand didn't do as well as his last album (onlybuilt4cuban linx2) which sold 160k in its first week. This album managed to move just 29,000 copies after one week.

Nicki Minaj's PINK FRIDAY album sold 25,000 copies this week, and it is now at a grand total of 1,214,000 copies. Eminem sold 22k copies this week of RECOVERY and is now at a total of 3,717,000. 12,000 copies was sold of My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fanasy (kanye west), bringing it to total of 1,074,000 copies. Lil Wayne's I Am Not A Human Being sold 11k this week, which now makes it a total of 807,000 copies sold so far.

Lupe Fiasco's Lasers Album Projected to Sell 200k

Over one day sales projections, lupe's third awaited album, "Lasers" is projected to sell over 200k copies in its first week in stores- according to hitsdailydouble.com

His third Atlantic Records studio album, Lasers, will debut at #1 next week with between 220-240k in sales, the second biggest of the year next to Adele and the best start of his career (hitsdailydouble.com)

I think that is huge for lupe and the fact that rappers are not selling as much as this right now. And also, his first album, FOOD AND LIQUOR sold 81k in its first week in stores; while his second album, The Cool sold 143k in its first week, so this is definitely an improvement.

Lupe Fiasco Talks Contemplating suicide

Lupe Fiasco, one of the, if not the most lyrical emcee of the new breeds of rappers, recently touched on an issue that led him to depression, to a point where he actually contemplated suicide. I feel him, and i respect him for coming out to talk about it. There are two things that through my search for self-discovery, i have found that man most want on this earth- they are Love (acceptance), and getting his desire satisfied. This two things, when not gotten are the reasons we have WARS in the world today, and all the other domestic dispute all over the world. And, lupe was at a point when he was not getting acceptance (because he was far beyond his time...far beyond what the general public could comprehend with their shallow minds.), and he also was not getting his hearth's desire (to get his music out there)

Read more below-
Interference began, he says, after executives insisted that The Cool - and its million-selling single Superstar - were considered failures. A fractious process reached rock bottom when Atlantic's chairman, Craig Kallman, told him his verses and performance on a new song the label wanted him to record, called Nothing On You, were "wack". (That was before the song, with Lupe's verses removed and new ones written by its original guest vocalist, his friend B.o.B, became a worldwide hit last year.) "That was the tipping point," he says. "It was less about the bruised ego but more the audacity of it. It was mentally destructive. I say it with a certain laissez-faire now because I'm past it, but back then, hearin' that shit, it fucked me up. I was super-depressed, lightly suicidal, at moments medium suicidal - and if not suicidal, willing to just walk away from it all completely." (The Guardian)

Personally, i think we all have our places on this earth- we are all special and unique. I think the problem is that Atlantic records execs should have known that lupe was not going to be good for a song like that. That song is too poppish for a lupe. Anyway, i feel how lupe would have felt when they told him his verse was wack- wow! Lupe, wack!!? Nah! Never. He was just put in the wrong place.

Read below how he was specifically told by execs at Atlantic records to dumb down his music-
"I was specifically told" -- Fiasco chuckled -- "'Don't rap too deep on this record.'" He laughed some more. "That was a specific order from the top. 'You're rapping too fast or too slow, or it's too complex.' ... There are consequences and combat that comes from that process and the eventual compromise. With me, though, I'm not writing about someone else. I'm writing about me. This is my life. It's very personal for me. So for somebody to kind of put their fingers in that and play with that, it becomes more damaging." (Chicago Sun-Times)


In other news, lupe's new album drops on march 8th, that's just a couple of days from now, so you can pre-order it.

lupe fiasco's fan beg record label for release of LASERS

I think there is nothing sweeter than what LUPE FIASCO'S fans just did; they sent a petition to ATLANTIC records, lupe's record label, to request the drop date of fiasco's third album, "lasers", that has been complete since last summer. I think there is no more motivation than this for any artist to get; when your fans genuinely go all out to get your album out, meaning they really need it.

Below is the petition from the fans:
"Dear Atlantic Records: The fans below have been waiting for the release for Lupe Fiasco's album 'Lasers' for over a good year now. Since when it was originally announced last summer, there has still yet to be a release date announced. It has even been stated by Lupe Fiasco the artist himself, that the album si in fact completed. Enough is enough, we demand that you stop playing around and give us the album that we have been highly anticipating since the release of The Cool." (Petition Online)

 I think if my fans did that for my book release i would definitely cry...Anyway, this is really good for hip hop. This shows that there are still fans of real hiphop out there. Lupe Fiasco is one of the rappers that came out the last decade that i really respect; he has depth, super smooth delivery, and some thoughtful lyrics. I think he is a real hip hop head, a lover of rap music, and he is not just in it for the fame and the money or anything like that.

I still bump FOOD AND LIQUOR(his first album), and THE COOL(second album), everytime in my deck. Infact, i have food and liqour on my phone, and i listen to it every now and then.

 


Below is what lupe had to say about the petition:
"I love to see progression," he said yesterday via phone. "I love it. I love to see this petition. It brought me to tears a couple of times like, 'these n---as really f--- with me. All these kids and these fans f--- with me and it's some positive sh--. Go to Wearenotlosers.com and see what Lasers really is. ... That's what they're petitioning for. Listen to 'I'm Beamin,' the song. It reaffirms what we're doing...I don't think the label cares about an album. I don't think n---as care. People just want their number-one record. They don't care about the rest of the album. I was talking to an engineer the other day and he said, 'These n---as don't even care about mixing an album no more.' They just want the first three songs. Three singles. They get them, one, two, three, they don't care what's on the rest of the album. I know this for sure. I've seen it. You can't blame them because of the attention span of the game and the attention span of music, how fast things are going. You only got them one, two, three shots. I'm not no fool. I'm looking at it like 'Yeah, you're right.'" (MTV)

I think this is very true, record labels don't really care about the album as a whole any more, they are just interested in those hot singles that are radio friendly; club friendly. And the thing is that, i don't totally blame them, because they are in it for the money; they are a business, that is why it is called the music industry, so the demand is what they are concerned about.

Below is what the recod label had to say:
"#Lasers is coming folks!," Atlantic wrote Saturday (July 24).

Very short, but i guess they answered the question.