All hail, King Kendrick. Compton emcee Kendrick Lamar’s surprise project, Untitled, Unmastered gives the Top Dawg Entertainment rep yet another number one album to add to his resume. As he claims the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, which also gives him his second such charting in less than a year.
The eight-track-project, which consists of demos from Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly sessions sold 178,000 equivalent album units in its first week. With 142,000 of them in pure album sales. Last March, Lamar’s Grammy-award winning album To Pimp a Butterfly earned him his first No. 1 after it sold 363,000 equivalent album units in its first week.
The TDE emcee is also the third rapper since January 2015 to notch two No. 1’s in less than a year, following Drake and Future. Drake did it with If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and his Future collaboration What a Time To Be Alive. While Future took it a step further with DS2, the aforementioned What a Time To Be Alive and Evol.
Originally only released to digital retailers and streaming services on March 4th, Untitled, Unmastered has also since seen a physical CD release just this past Friday March 11th.
Following Kendrick is Adele’s 25 at No. 2 and Rihanna’s Anti at No. 3. 2 Chainz latest album ColleGrove debuts at No. 4 with 53,000 units to give him his third straight top five album. A full list of the rest of the top 10 can be seen below.
1. Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered. – 178,000
2. Adele — 25 — 61,000
3. Rihanna — ANTI — 58,000
4. 2 Chainz — ColleGrove — 53,000
5. Justin Bieber — Purpose — 53,000
6. Joey + Rory — Hymns — 45,000
7. Chris Stapleton — Traveller — 39,000
8. Twenty One Pilots — Blurryface — 34,000
9. The Weeknd — Beauty Behind the Madness — 30,000
10. Kevin Gates — Islah — 30,000