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Jay Z’s ‘4:44’ Earns Him His 14th No. 1 Album on the Billboard 200 Chart

Published

7 years ago

July 18, 2017

One week after its exclusive Tidal release, JayZ‘s 4:44 debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100. In addition to moving 262,000 equivalent album units with 174,000 of which coming from traditional album sales, 4:44 had the fourth-largest week this year, behind Kendrick Lamar‘s Damn (603,000 units), Drake‘s More Life (505,000) and Ed Sheeran‘s Divide (451,000). Of those 174,000 in sales, 131,000 came as a download while 43,000 were from CDs.

Jay Z’s latest album also became the fourth-biggest streaming debut this year. Of the reported 262,000 units, 7,000 were track equivalent albums (TEA) while 82,000 units were the result of streaming equivalent albums (SEA). That latter number adds up to 122.4 million streams of the album’s songs. 4:44 fell short of eclipsing of the numbers put up by Jay’s last album Magna Carta…Holy Grail, which amassed 528,000 copies sold in its first week.

4:44 becomes Jay Z’s fourteenth album to debut atop the Billboard Top 100, extending his lead over Bruce Springsteen who sits in second with eight. Ever since Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life which came out in 1998, every one of Hov’s solo efforts have reached the top spot. His latest release also improves the rapper’s own record for the most No. 1 albums by a solo artist. Springsteen and Barbra Streisand are in a distant second with 11.Even though Tidal chose to not release 4:44‘s first-week streaming numbers to Nielsen, the RIAA announced that the album was certified platinum less than a week after its release.