NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A Bronx rapper has snagged the top spot on the US Billboard 200 chart after selling just 823 albums — and posting 83 million on-demand streams.
Industry tracker Billboard, whose chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the United States, said Monday that A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s album “Hoodie SZN” climbed to the top with the equivalent of 58,000 sales for the week ending January 10.
That multi-metric sum includes streams and downloads of individual songs along with sales of the full 20-song album — but according to Billboard, streams powered the ascent, while the sales set a record-low for an album that reached number one.
The figures lay bare the ever-widening gap between the rapidly growing business of streaming and that of lethargic album sales.
The 23-year-old rapper’s record tops that of 3,481 copies and 84 million streams, which rapper 21 Savage set last week with his album “I Am > I Was.”
“Hoodie SZN,” which came out December 21, is the Bronx artist’s second full-length studio album and second visit to the Billboard’s top 10, after his album “The Bigger Artist” peaking at number four in 2017.
His sophomore album did not sell enough downloads — “Hoodie SZN” has not been released in a physical format — to make Billboard’s sales-only chart, which saw Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” soundtrack take first place.
The Billboard 200 chart began including streams in its ranking in December 2014, calculating figures based on “equivalent album units” that include streaming, album downloads and traditional album sales.
© Agence France-Presse
