Nicki Minaj: ‘Beyond Grateful’ for Her Number 2 Debut
After Nicki Minaj sold 375,000 copies of her debut album Pink Friday last week — which was enough for the album to enter the Billboard 200 chart at Number 2 — the shape-shifting MC offered her fans a history lesson on Twitter.
“Pink Friday has the 2nd highest debut week in the HISTORY of FEMALE RAP w/375,190 units sold. Thank u sooo much 4 supporting this project!,” Minaj tweeted on Wednesday. She then added a few notes on Lauryn Hill, whose Miseducation of Lauryn Hill moved 422,000 units in the week after its August 1998 release. “Lauryn sold 422,000 in the 1st wk w/Miseducation! That album wasn’t categorized as HipHop/Rap under ‘genre,'” Minaj noted. “So Pink Friday under the ‘HipHop/Rap’ genre has the highest selling first week from a female in HISTORY.
Nicki Minaj: The New Queen of Hip-Hop
“The previous holder of highest 1st week sales for a female RAP album was missy elliott’s ‘under construction’ with 260K,” she continued. “I am in the company of 2 amazing groundbreaking women & for that, I am beyond grateful. S/O to Lauryn and Missy.”
R&B singer Ne-Yo, whose ambitiously high-concept Libra Scale debuted at Number 9 on this week’s Billboard 200 with 114,000 sales, also took to Twitter to reflect on his sales.
“I love that there are people that sing better, dance better, make more money, sell more albums…it gives me new goals to reach,” he tweeted on Thursday morning. “The beauty of being an artist is expansion and growth. But understanding that not everyone is gonna like it, is part of that growth. You can’t do TRUE art with the intention of pleasing everyone, a hard lesson learned for me.”
He continued: “Top 10 for the 4th time. That’s a victory. Artistic freedom and people that appreciate it. Victory. 117k first week. Room to grow. To those that love LIBRA SCALE, thank you for your love. To those that don’t, thank you for your opinion. End of the day, I’m learning.”
Kanye West, whose My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted atop this week’s album chart after selling 496,000 copies in its first week in stores, has yet to comment on having the fourth-biggest chart debut of 2010 via Twitter. Also mum on the topic of this week’s charts was Taylor Swift, whose third album Speak Now experienced a 64 percent uptick in sales (241,000 copies) and bounced up to Number 4. Swift appeared on the American Music Awards on Nov. 21 and was the focus of an NBC special on Thanksgiving.
Kanye West, Nicki Minaj Score Big Debuts on Billboard 200 [Billboard]