Up-and-coming hip-hop star Travis Scott has started his new album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking his first time in the top spot. The rapper and producer’s sophomore full-length effort, the oddly-titled Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight debuts atop the all-encompassing albums tally in the States with 88,000 equivalent copies moved in the first week.
88,000 equivalent units (meaning the combining of actual sales with a methodology that turns streams and sales of individual songs into equivalent album units) may have been enough to secure the peak of the charts, but at the same time, it marks one of the smallest sums for a No. 1 album in all of 2016. Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight is now one of just two records that have managed to begin in the top spot on the Billboard 200 with less than 100,000 album units. The other lucky title was Gwen Stefani’s This Is What The Truth Feels Like, which nabbed the coveted position with just 84,000 equivalent units back in April.
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Scott’s second album bests the No. 3 peak of last year’s Rodeo, which properly introduced him to the masses in a meaningful way. That record started in third place on the Billboard 200 with just 85,000 units moved. The fact that his new album started two spots higher, but with fewer copies moved is proof that as time goes on, the number of copies that most artists, even the most popular in the world, are able to sell and shift.
Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight so far hasn’t been a singles factory, but the campaign is just getting started. So far, the album has sent off two proper singles: “Wonderful,” which features vocals from R&B/pop star The Weeknd, and more recently, “Pick Up The Phone,” which Young Thug and fellow hip-hop artist Quavo joined in on.
By making it to the top this week, Travis Scott becomes the fifth hip-hop artist to top the Billboard 200 in 2016, and the year isn’t over yet. He follows in the successful footsteps of Future, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Drake and DJ Khaled, all of whom have owned the highest position on the albums ranking for a single frame—except Drake’s Views, which was in charge on and off for a dozen weeks.
