Hip Hop Album Sales: Week Ending 03/11/08

Source from HipHopDX

Black Friday fueled the domestic record sales market last week, with millions of Americans flocking to the electronic stores that carry CDs. An exciting week to begin with, Kanye West assumed his pole position with his departure from rapping 808's & Heartbreak . The release significantly under-sold last year's Graduation and sold less first week numbers than Beyonce saw last week with her I Am...Sasha Fierce , despite an extra day of sales (amidst a holiday week).

Jay-Z's wife came in at #4, having another extremely strong week, with platinum possibilities for next week. Ludacris came shortly behind, with his artistic Theater of The Mind. The ATL veteran entered in the Top 5, but demonstrated lower numbers than expected by many sales projections.

T.I. remained strong in the charts, passing up T-Pain from last week with his Paper Trail. Teddy closed out the top urban acts at #21 with Th33 Ringz.

Top 200 Album Sales (Top 5 Hip Hop/R&B)

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Est. Total
1	Kanye West	808's & Heartbreak	450,145	451,395
4	Beyonce	I Am...Sasha Fierce	257,377	740,554
5	Ludacris	Theater of The Mind	213,493	214,126
16	T.I.	Paper Trail	74,792	1,303,834
21	T-Pain	Thr33 Ringz	48,769	278,318

Lil Wayne gained some ground in the holiday shuffle. Tha Carter III, despite over six months out, toppled the debut week from veteran Warner Brothers emcee E-40 and his Ball Street Journal .

Young Jeezy and The Game remain close competitors on the charts, coming in #70 and #97 with The Recession and LAX respectively.

Q-Tip and The Renaissance got some fuel from the critical acclaim, being the lowest charting rap album on the Top 200, despite positioning 94 spaces from the bottom at #106.

Other Notables

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Est. Total
39	Lil Wayne	Tha Carter III	31,920	2,726,589
42	E-40	The Ball Street Journal	30,369	30,677
70	Young Jeezy	The Recession	15,730	644,997
97	The Game	L.A.X.	10,459	591,364
106	Q-Tip	The Renaissance	9,101	67,177