After selling 327,000 copies in its first week Yeezus earned Kanye West his sixth number one album.
After garnering a metacritic score of 85, indicating “universal acclaim” the Rick Rubin produced Yeezy earned the number one spot on the charts yet again. Even though it is his lowest selling opening week (selling about a third of Graduation’s first week, 957,000), Yeezus still sold enough copies to reach the top spot. This is in spite of the album leaking a few days before its release date and Kanye West’s notable lack of promotion, which included live projections, a tweet of his album cover, and performances on SNL. With his 6th No. 1, West is tying Eminem and Nas for the second-most No. 1 albums among rappers. Jay-Z holds the top spot with 12. Take a look at some of West’s first week sales stats below:
Graduation (2007) – 957,000
Late Registration (2005) – 860,000
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) – 496,000
808s & Heartbreak (2008) – 450,145
College Dropout (2004) – 441,000
Yeezus (2013)- 327,000