The album sales race between Kanye West's Yeezus and J. Cole's Born Sinner came down close to the wire. With J. Cole's album projected to win hip-hop's June 18th battle due to new favortism via social media, Kanye's final numbers tallied up to 328,800 units sold on his sixth album, besting Cole's sophmore project which moved 297,922 units.
With Ye's album leaking just shy of a few days before it hit the stores and Cole's latest leaking more than a week before his official date, I'm pretty sure this might have decreased his numbers on the 18th.
During his visit to RapFix live, J. Cole had this to say:
"I could've left it right where I was and just gone head-to-head with Wale and seen what happened there. I would've had a much better chance, but it wasn't about the sales.
That would be a nice bonus, but it's more about the statement, [and putting] my name in the conversation. I'ma throw my name in the hat.
This is art, and I can't compete against the Kanye West celebrity and the status that he's earned just from being a genius. But I can put my name in the hat and tell you that I think my album is great and you be the judge and you decide."
Get More: J. Cole, Music News
Even though Cole's album was moved up a week to compete with Kanye and he ended up coming in 2nd, he still made some major gains with a 26% increase in his sales over the sales off his first album Cole World: The Sideline Story.
On the other hand, Kanye fell short of his projected 360-380K units, marking his lowest first-week sales performance since his 2004 album The College Dropout which was his all time lowest moving 441,000 units. However, Ye' still landed his fifth No.1 album on the Billboard 200.
Both albums are of course in heavy rotation on play lists today and are receiving great reviews from the streets. In my opinion the great reviews are similar but vary in style of course with Kanye's dubbed as "GothHop" with much controversial curves thrown and him pretty much saying whatever the fuck he wants. J. Cole's album is much more of a "verbal powerhouse" with a lot of self-emptying and truth telling.
Hats off to both the genius's !
~BeautiiFLY
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