S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is reportedly en route to outsell new albums from Nicki Minaj and Lloyd Banks with projections up to 575,000 sold copies.
Based on one-day reports, R&B crooner Ne-Yo‘s new Libra Scale album will also be fractioned into the sales competition.
The Roc-A-Fella/IDJ renaissance hip-hop icon and awards show provocateur lives up to his own lofty ambitions with a chart-topping debut for his latest rap opus, on target for between 525-575k, surpassing all pre-release forecasts. Cash Money/Universal Motown’s red-hot Nicki Minaj also bested pre-release predictions, with a total in the 375-425k range for her hotly anticipated debut, Pink Friday, though the upcoming Black Friday could render these estimates a little less accurate than usual. Def Jam/IDJ R&B songwriter/producer Ne-Yo’s fourth album, Libra Scale, should do in the 115-140k range. (HITS Daily Double)
The “Punch Line King” will see his Hunger For More 2 album face-off against Jay-Z‘s greatest hits compilation.
Lloyd Banks’ H.F.M. 2 (The Hunger for More 2), his first album for G-Unit under a deal with EMI Label Services, is off to a Top 10 start at iTunes, and should do between 40-50k in sales. Rounding out the new releases are Jay-Z’s Hits album (25-30k), Arista Nashville’s Alan Jackson (20-25k) and Nine Inch Nails‘ self-released Pretty Hate Machine reissue on their own Null label (17-20k). (Hits Daily Double)
Recently, Young Money CEO Mack Maine revealed Minaj’s anxiety toward selling an ample amount of debut albums.
“She was worrying about first week. She was like, ‘Drake sold [463,000]. What you think I’ma sell? As if she gon’ sell less,” recalls Maine. “I explained to her, ‘You know a lot of the press and the media really got it brainwashed with first week sales.’ Bieber went on to sell 2 million and Bieber might have only sold 17,000 the first week. Juvenile sold like 30,000 his first week of 400 Degreez and went on to sell 6 million…I don’t know what happened to working the record and making sure that the artist reaches a certain point. I rather the end number be higher than the beginning. These days, it’s all about: Let me do 500,000, a million the first week. Don’t get caught up in what Wayne did. You don’t want your pinnacle to be your first-week sales. Then everything’s downhill from there and then what? I don’t care if you sell 10 the first week and you go on to sell 5 million–we did better than the person that sold 300 the first week.” (VIBE)
Last summer, Banks discussed facing off against West and Minaj’s new albums this month.
“I wouldn’t say it’s going up against them,” Banks told radio host Jenny Boom Boom about releasing his album around the same dates as Nicki Minaj and Kanye West’s new albums. “But I’m definitely going to get mine. November [22nd], HFM2. It’s a different fanbase to be honest. My first album came out in 2004, so I got people following me from then and prior to that since the G-Unit album, so it dates back further. And at the same time, I’m trying to generate new fans. That’s the challenge.” (SOHH)
Check out a recent Nicki Minaj interview below:
