S. Samuel
Grammy-nominated rappers Eminem, Drake, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj are all largely responsible for helping hip-hop retain its place as a force within music industry, as each artist generated strong album sales in 2010.
According to reports, hip-hop was the only music genre that demonstrate sales growth last year.
While its bump was not huge — just 3% — rap was the only genre to post an album-sales increase last year, scanning 27.3 million units, up from 26.4 million units in the prior year — and five straight years of declining sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Along with Eminem’s 3.415 million sales for the year, other big sellers in the genre include Drake’s “Thank Me Later” (1.27 million), Kanye West’s”My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (882,000), Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday” (852,000) and Lil Wayne‘s “Rebirth” (710,000) and “I Am Not a Human Being” (664,000), according to Nielsen SoundScan. (Billboard)
In addition to proliferating the genre, Eminem’s Recovery album was the top-selling record of 2010.
Eminem’s Recovery was the best-selling album of 2010, according to year-end figures released by Nielsen SoundScan. Recovery sold 3.42 million copies in the U.S. between Jan. 4, 2010 and Jan. 2, 2011, easily beating runners-up like Lady Antebellum‘s Need You Now (3.09 million), Taylor Swift‘s Speak Now (2.96 million), and Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0 (2.32 million). (Entertainment Weekly)
This week, Recovery maintained its dominance on the sales chart, placing amongst the Top 3 music releases.
Leading the pack this week is Eminem’s Recovery which moved up five slots to No. 2 with 63,300 records, falling one position behind Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (77,000). According to Nielsen SoundScan, Slim Shady’s new solo album has sold 3,414,900 records after 28 weeks in stores. (SOHH Sales Wrap)
Despite the rapper’s LP passing the three million albums sold mark, Em previously discussed his disinterest in record sales.
“I don’t think I’ve actually stopped to think about it,” Eminem said referencing being namedartist of the decade. “I never thought that my life would amount to this. But to be able to sit back and digest it is so strange to me, because I still feel so regular. I don’t understand what people think the big deal is about me. It’s a very strange relationship that I have with fame…Honestly, as long as people enjoy the music, that means the most to me. I could sell 80 million records in the first week, and if my peers or fans of real hip-hop didn’t like it, it really wouldn’t mean anything.” (Billboard)
Check out a recent Eminem interview down below:
