Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ debuts at No. 1 with 2021’s best first-week numbers

Photo: IANS


Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ has become his 10th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.

The massive 27-track effort topped the chart with the biggest sales week of any album this year, earning 309,000 equivalent album units for the week ending September 2, according to Billboard.

These numbers include 357.4 million on-demand streams and 37,000 in pure sales. Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ previously held the record for the charting week ending June 5 with 295,000 equivalent album units. Kanye’s latest offering also earned the largest streaming week of the year for an album, surpassing J. Cole’s ‘The Off-Season’, which earned 325.05 million on-demand streams during its May debut week.

Kanye’s 10th No. 1 album makes him the first artiste who debuted this century to score, well, 10 No. 1 albums.

It also makes him the seventh artiste in history to have 10 chart-topping albums. The Beatles have the most with 19, Jay-Z isn’t too far behind with 14, and Bruce Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, Eminem, and Elvis Presley also have 10 or more. Drake and Taylor Swift both have nine, with Drizzy expected to match Kanye’s accomplishment with ‘Certified Lover Boy’, as it’s projected to chart next week with 575,000-625,000 album-equivalent units as mentioned in Complex.com.