UPDATE 2: A week later, the final numbers for the double-disc album are in. It sold 286,373 first week with 35,866 of that number coming from pure sales.
UPDATE (May 17): The first week sales projections for the album have decreased just a bit to 320k. Interestingly, both good kid, m.A.A.d city and DAMN. are expected to rise inside top 20 with sales of approximately 22k.
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All eyes of the industry were on Kendrick Lamar when he announced the release of his latest fifth studio album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.
On Friday, the superstar rapper dropped a double disc album featuring songs which have all kind of themes on it: homophobia, abuse, cheating, trauma and what not. There are a few features on it: Kodak Black, Summer Walker, Baby Keem, Sampha, Ghostface Killah and Blxst among others.
Now that the album has been out for well over a day, we have the first week sales projections. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is expected to move 325-350k copies in the first week, powered by nearly 400 million streams. This will ensure a number 1 debut on the Billboard 200 chart for him next week.
In comparison, DAMN. moved 603k in the first week with 353k pure sales but the big difference is that during that run, Kendrick had sold bundles of the album, the rules for which have since been modified. K.Dot also has not made any physical copies of the latest album available on sale so the only pure copies that it’s registering, it’s generating from digital stores like iTunes and Amazon.
A music video for the standout song ‘N95’ is on the way. Kendrick also announced a world tour to support the album on Friday, kicking off July 19th at Oklahoma City, OK.