This Week in Hip-Hop Sales: YeHova Sit Pretty on The Throne

The sky is blue, water is wet, Rosa Acosta is fine and YeHova (Yeezy x Hova) have the number one album in the country. It's no surprise that "Watch the Throne" did such big numbers, but the duo didn't just do well, they answered any possible criticism. Despite being online only for the first few days, "WTT" sold 430,000 copies, making it the second fastest selling album of the year, behind only Lady Gaga's "Born This Way", and breaking Coldplay's previous record for most iTunes downloads in a week with almost 300K. That's not victory, that's domination. Although, to continue a conversation I started on my "Watch the Throne" review, it bears mentioning that YeHova still didn't top Eminem's first week numbers for "Recovery" (750K). In other words, purely from a sales standpoint Em's still more powerful than the Voltron combo of YeHova. All bow to the true king of rap sales, Mr. Mathers.

And now let's turn our attention to the Top 10 Urban Songs with units sold

1 (2 overall). LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett - Party Rock Anthem (160,000)
2 (5 overall). Bad Meets Evil - Lighters (146,000)
3 (6 overall). Drake - Headlines (146,000)
4 (7 overall). Nicki Minaj - Super Bass (140,000)
5 (8 overall). Lil Wanye - How to Love (114,000)
6 (13 overall). Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo - Give Me Everything (83,000)
7 (19 overall). Jay-Z & Kanye West - Who Gon Stop Me (66,000)
8 (21 overall). Jason Derulo - It Girl (64,000)
9 (23 overall). Rihanna - Cheers (59,000)
10 (28 overall) Beyonce - Best I Never Had - (52,000)

1) Jay now has 12 number one albums on his resume, which puts him behind only The Beatles on the all-time list. Take a minute to think about how truly extraordinary that is. A black man from the Marcy Projects making a genre of music that's criticized and looked down on more than any other, is second only to The Beatles. John Lennon famously once declared that The Beatles were bigger than God so what does that make Jay?

2) Whoa Drizzy, damn then. I thought "Headlines" was a decent track but I honestly didn't think it had top ten potential. Looks like I was seriously wrong. In fact, it literally fell only 500 copies behind "Lighters" for the number five spot. Speaking of which, if your Drizzy don't you just say fuck it, go online and buy 600 copies yourself to grab that higher spot? $600 seems like a small price to pay to someone like Aubrey for a top-five song.

3) Speaking of which, like it or not you've got to recognize Cash Money's marketing machine. I'm too lazy to do the research needed to say this definitively, but this has to be one of the only times an imprint has had three of its artists simultaneously back-to-back-to-back in the top ten. Which means I woudn't be surprised if Wayne, Nicki and Drake all did a song together for "Carter IV" - just remember who called it first when it happens.

4) In other famous rapper duo news, Waka Flocka and Gucci Mane's collaborative album debuted at number 21 with 16,000 albums sold. Oh shit! Throne? More like watch the stool. (Thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.)

5) This week's Mr. Irrelevant Award, given to the song that sits at the absolute bottom of the charts (the number 200 spot), goes to...wow, now that's ironic...Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Primetime". A number one album and a number 200 single? These guys really can do it all.