Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 11/17/08

predicted by many, T-Pain took the top urban spot with his debut week of Th33 Ringz. The Florida singer did not start at the top overall though. Entering at #4, the star followed debuts from stars in other genres: Taylor Swift, David Archuletta and the 29th volume of Now That's What I Call Music respectively. T.I. stayed Top 10, with what remains the second best-selling rap album this year in Paper Trail
Shortly behind T.I., G.O.O.D. Music sensation John Legend has spent all three weeks of Evolver in the Top 15 of the chart. Ne-Yo's Year of the Gentleman continues to be a better showing than any rap release for the Def Jam label, perhaps until Kanye West and Ludacris next week. Lil Wayne fell just short of Top 25, selling Tha Carter III, strongly towards three million.

Top 200 Album Sales (Top 5 Hip Hop/R&B)

Rank Artist Album This Week Est. Total
4
T-Pain
Thr33 Ringz
167,451
167,743

10
T.I.
Paper Trail
62,046
1,178,455

12
John Legend
Evolver
49,857
255,064

23
Ne-Yo
Year of the Gentleman
26,808

600,044

26
Lil Wayne
Tha Carter III
23,134
2,671,816


Young Jeezy remains strong with his Recession [click to read], remaining in The Top 50. Q-Tip fell considerably from week one to week two with his warmly-received The Renaissance With a strong relationship with 2K Sports and a tour with The Cool Kids starting up, perhaps Tip can gain the momentum to crack the six-figure mark by early December.
The Game and LAX which were long just paces behind Jeezy, were now split by The Abstract, as his third official album comes in at #58
Over five years removed from a release, Q-Tip fell just short of a Top 10 debut week with his critically acclaimed Universal Motown release The Renaissance [click to read]. With limited airplay and unanimously strong reviews, this album will be interesting to watch, as the label succeeded with similar circumstances with Erykah Badu earlier this year.
Strangely, DJ Khaled, DJ Unk and Nelly [click to read] all fell from the Top 200. This came despite Unk offering his sophomore album for $3 one day last week digitally. Perhaps Ace Hood, Khaled's artist releasing this week, will hoist the Miami deejay back to the charts. Plies also bid farewell to the charts, temporarily, as he works on Da REAList for early next month, which may pull catalogue back onto the charts, just as witnessed by T.I. this fall.
Raphael Saadiq continues to sell steadily with his acclaimed The Way I See It [click read] captivating audiences. A surprise to some, Philadelphia cult-followed underground rappers Jedi Mind Tricks came in just one slot after Saadiq, with their History of Violence The album features the return of early group member Jus Allah, and some highly-touted production.

Other Notables

Rank Artist Album This Week Est. Total
42
Young Jeezy
Recession
16,210
614,781

50
Q-Tip
The Renaissance
14,881
49,100

58
The Game
L.A.X.
12,189
571,265
168
Raphael Saadiq
The Way I See It
4,220
76,919

169
Jedi Mind Tricks
A History Of Violence
4,168
4,451


We posed a JMT appearance last week. Will Ace Hood do Top 10 numbers?


Remeber top is total week ending
bottom overall sales.