Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 1/11/08

There was very little movement on the charts in the week after the holidays. Few new releases, and a 50% decrease in most sales allowed the biggest winners of 2008 to ease into their 2009 run. For another week, Taylor Swift‘s Fearless reigned supreme yet again. The Country star was one of the few staple positions in R&B took the top of the charts. Kanye West‘s 808’s & Heartbreak took the top urban spot back, at #3. The album, may grow in sales, as the Chicago luminary is set to grace the covers of upcoming issues of Complex and VIBE.

Beyonce followed behind with I Am…Sasha Fierce at #4.

Keyshia Cole‘s A Different Me held the #7 spot. Jamie Foxx was right behind with his Intuition. The effort stands a chance at going gold this week. Lastly, Akon returned to the Top 10 for the first time in close to a month with Freedom coming in at #10 from the one-time platinum superstar. 
  
Top 200 Album Sales (Top 5 Hip Hop/R&B)

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Est. Total
3	Kanye West	808’s & Heartbreak	50,486	1,145,345
4	Beyonce	I Am…Sasha Fierce	49,365	1,585,156
7	Keyshia Cole	A Different Me	36,875	539,093
8	Jamie Foxx	Intuition	33,666	448,172
10	Akon	Freedom	26,881	377,175

Lil Wayne has climbed in the dormant release schedule. Tha Carter III heads towards three million. The New Orleans veteran had three albums on the charts this week. Plies took the #32 spot with his third major label full length in two years. Da REAList was followed, 22 spots later, by Common‘s Universal Mind Control, despite many mixed reviews. 

Meanwhile, Scarface may be a week away from six figures with hisEmeritus, his reported last album from the onetime platinum rapper. Despite strong sales, the effort has been ignored by commercial radio. With a T-Wayne bootleg mixtape, The T-Wayne Show also making the Top 200 at #152 with 3,400 copies sold, Lil Wayne saw three total placements on the charts. His DJ Drama and Aphilliates Music Group released a retail version of Dedication 3, that sold just under 4,000 units last week, putting the retail mixtape on the charts for the fourth straight week. 

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