At a time, the only people who cared about first-week album sales were working in the music industry. In this current musical climate, though, it feels like everybody has an opinion about first-week sales, tallying up their favorite artist’s numbers and using them to calculate how impactful the release was. Some critics have said that, because of the emphasis from fans on first-week sales, there has been a shift in the way that we listen to music, reducing replays after that all-important first week.
It doesn’t feel like that trend will end either, with media personalities including DJ Akademiks sharing first-week sales projections on a weekly basis, earning some of his highest engagement rates on those posts. As the year comes to a close, a list has started to circulate showing hip-hop’s biggest first weeks this year. As expected, Drake holds the top spot with 613,000 units moved in Week One with Certified Lover Boy. Kanye West was the runner-up with 309,000 units sold for DONDA in the first week. Surprisingly enough, despite not releasing any new projects this year, Nicki Minaj could also be found toward the lower end of the list with her twelve-year-old mixtape, Beam Me Up Scotty, which was re-issued in 2021 with a handful of new records, including “Seeing Green” with Drake and Lil Wayne.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images — Nicki Minaj in 2010
Minaj herself is surprised to see the mixtape make the cut with 80,000 first-week sales on the re-issue, sharing a post on Instagram Stories and saying, “My 12 year old re-released mixtape made the list. Barbz!!!!!! Love you so much. Let’s go!”
Take a look at the list below and let us know if you’re surprised about any of the albums on there.
