Like he always does on each release, Drake kicks off this week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with More Life, his seventh chart-topper.
The playlist-style effort, which arrived last week (March 18), earned 505,000 equivalent album units in its first week, Billboard reports. The consecutive No. 1 ties Drake with Eminem and Kanye West for second-most No. 1 albums, trailing behind Jay Z whose 13 No. 1s leads the pack.
With ‘More Life,’ Drake cements status as king of the streaming era
About 257,000 of More Life‘s sales were driven by streaming equivalent album units, which according to Billboard, equates to 384.8 million streams of songs from the 22-track album during the tracking frame (each unit equals 1,500 streams of songs from the album). This sum soars above the previous record-breaking counts for Views, which opened with 163,000 streaming equivalent units. Meanwhile, 226,000 units were sold in traditional album sales. The latter is the second-largest sales week of 2017, falling behind Ed Sheeran’s ÷ album, which debuted at No. 1 earlier this month with 322,000 copies sold.
If that wasn’t enough, over the weekend, Republic Records confirmed to The Verge that More Life‘s total first-week figure is around 600 million individual streams across all services worldwide.
Elsewhere on the chart, Rick Ross picked up his ninth top 10 album, as Rather You Than Me debuted at No. 3 with 106,000 units sold. The feat is impressive, considering the fact that the singles released for the album (“Buy Back the Block,” “I Think She Like Me”) were slow burners. The numbers outshine Ross’ last album performance, 2015’s Black Market, which peaked at No. 6 and sold 65,000 units in its first week. Rozay’s latest set is his largest selling album since 2014’s Mastermind. As previously revealed, Ross plans to continue his top 10 album hot streak with Port of Miami 2: Born to Kill, a sequel to his 2006 debut.