The First Week Numbers for Drake’s ‘More Life’ Are In

As early forecasts predicted, Drake’s More Life is No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and sets a new streaming record.

Billboard reports More Life earned 505,000 equivalent album units in the week that ended March 23, according to Nielsen Music. By comparison, it’s the biggest week for any album since Drake’s VIEWS, which earned 1.04 million units during the week ending on May 21, 2016.

Billboard also notes:

Of More Life’s starting sum, a record 257,000 units were driven by streaming equivalent album units, equating 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).

 

More Life’s total streaming sum beat VIEWS, which debuted with 163,000 streaming equivalent units (245.1 million song streams).

Drake earned his seventh No. 1 album of his career, tying Kanye West and Eminem for the second most No. 1s among hip-hop artists. The three MCs are trailing behind Jay Z, who has 13 No. 1 albums.

In other chart news, Rick Ross’ Rather You Than Me enters at No. 3 with 106,000 units (70,000 in traditional album sales). Rather You Than Me is his largest sales sum since 2014’s Mastermind debuted at No. 1 with 179,000 copies sold.

Catch up on our review of More Life here, and our take on Rozay’s “Idols Become Rivals” here.