Kendrick Lamar scores biggest first-week numbers of 2022 with new album “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers”.
The first week numbers for Kendrick Lamar’s new album “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” are here. K. Dot’s fifth studio album, a follow up to 2017’s Pulitzer-winning effort “DAMN”, has sold 295,500 equivalent units in the first week, which is the biggest of this year.
The project was a double-disc album, with 9 tracks on each side, with guest appearances from Kodak Black, Baby Keem, Blxst, Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah and more. The album was first projected to move over 350,000 total album-equivalent sales this week, but the final results are less than 300k.
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Billboard 200: #1(new) @kendricklamar, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers 295,500 [343.02 million on-demand streams | 35,500 pure sales].
— chart data (@chartdata) May 22, 2022
.@kendricklamar‘s ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’ earns the biggest first week sales for an album by any artist on the Billboard 200 this year.
— chart data (@chartdata) May 22, 2022
‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’ is @kendricklamar’s fourth consecutive #1 album on the Billboard 200.
— chart data (@chartdata) May 22, 2022
The numbers are less than half of his previous project “DAMN.” first-week sales, as it topped the US Billboard 200 with 603,000 album-equivalent units. The album still had one of the top debuts for rap projects from 2021 to now, as the only albums that sold more than him are “Donda” from Kanye West and “Certified Lover Boy” from Drake.
It’s the third week in a row that the bar for the finest 2022 debut has been raised. Because of Lamar’s claim, Bad Bunny’s summer smash, “Un Verano Sin Ti,” only had one week to occupy the top spot; it debuted at No. 1 with 274,000 equivalent album units last week. Future’s “I Never Liked You” had debuted on #1 the week prior, with 222,000 views.
Rap albums with first-weeks over 200,000 total units from 2021 to now:
Drake’s Certified Lover Boy – 613,000
Kanye West’s Donda – 309,000
Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers – 286,000*
J. Cole’s The Off-Season – 282,000
*Forecasted
— XXL Magazine (@XXL) May 20, 2022
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