S. Samuel
Music stars Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar are both expected to enjoy impressive first week sales with projections pushing their solo albums to strong seven-day openers.
According to reports, Swift is expected to push over a million while Lamar’s official studio album release should sell over 200,000 copies.
RED TIDE: Taylor Swift’s Red now looks solidly north of 1 million in first-week sales, with a chance to possibly top Lady Gaga‘s 1.1 million-selling debut for Born This Way in May 2011. But that album, of course, included more than 400k in 99-cent sales from Amazon MP3. How about that, boys and girls?! Meanwhile, Interscope’s Kendrick Lamar is also having a big first week, with his album now looking like it will break 200k. (10/23p) (Hits Daily Double)
Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller has publicly co-signed Lamar’s new good kid, m.A.A.d city debut.
“congrats to Kendrick tho, he won. nothing but happy for that dude.,” he tweeted October 22nd.
“man i want kendrick to do ridiculous numbers. that would make me feel better about the world and where we all at.” (Mac Miller’s Twitter)
Platinum-selling rapper Drake has also applauded Lamar’s new solo effort.
“Congratulations to Kendrick. Incredible body of work. Honored to be a part of it.” (Drake’s Twitter)
The project serves as Kendrick’s official studio debut after a slew of mixtapes and indie release.
Lamar’s major-label debut, probably the year’s most significant hip-hop release, proves his talent to be as prodigious as his online output – the 25-year-old has released five mixtapes and one independent album to date. Like his mentor, Dr Dre , Lamar comes from Compton in California, but catalogues his experience of that neighborhood with a lyrical precision and cool remove at odds with the “harsh realities we in”. Syncretising old and new, he’s right to conclude: “Now we can all celebrate/ We can all harvest the rap artists of NWA.” (The Guardian)
Check out some recent Kendrick Lamar footage below:
