This Week in Hip-Hop Sales: Maybe 50 Shouldn’t Be Talking So Big Posted by Nathan S. on 11/19/09 | Filed under Features, Charts

It'd be the understatement of the year to say that 50 Cent's been talking big about his new album "Before I Self Destruct". Unlike "Curtis", this time around the man wisely didn't promise to retire if he was outsold, but he has been vowing that "Self Destruct" will be the defining album of the decade. Hell, he even laughed so hard he cried after hearing about Rick Ross associated Triple C's low sales numbers. Well the man may be crying again but for an entirely different reason: early reports indicate that 50 will sell approximately 150,00 to 160,000 units its first week, by far the lowest opening week numbers of his career. More on that later...

First, since for the second week in a row Michael Jackson is the only urban artist to have a Top 10 Album (he currently sits at number four), I'm officially switching over to the Top Ten Songs until further notice.

Top 10 Songs with units sold

1. Owl City - Fireflies 181,354
2. Lady Antebellum - Need You Now 156,663
3. Iyaz - Replay 149,160
4. Jay-Z & Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind 141,908
5. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance 139,744
6. Ke$ha - Tik Tok 138,245
7. Britney Spears - 3 116,848
8. Miley Cyrus - Party in the U.S.A. 114,924
9. Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say 114,180
10. Rihanna - Russian Roulette 99,655

The Refined Take:

1) First, it has to be said that most artists would be ecstatic to do Fiddy's numbers: 150,000 in one week is no joke, but 50 is no ordinary artist. This is by far - by far! - the worst one of his albums has ever done. By comparison, his debut "Get Rich or Die Tryin" sold 872,000, "The Massacre" sold 1.15 million and "Curtis" sold 695,000. Now a lot of that decline can be attributed to lower sales numbers overall, and the fact that the album leaked online before the release, but not all of it. I mean, Weezy's last album sold over 1 million in its first week, and you know that s**t leaked too. There's no getting around it. 50's just not as powerful as he once was.

2) In other news, Wale's "Attention Deficit" moved a scant 28,000 copies. In other words, Wale's the new poster child for rappers who got talked about so much you would have guessed they'd have done huge numbers, but it didn't really pan out. You know, those guys.

3) Can I get an official ruling on Lady Gaga please? Is she an urban artist? I want to say no, but she did just do "Video Phone (Remix)" with Beyonce, and is going out on tour with Kid Cudi. That's got to count for something right?

4) I'm man enough to admit that I like Jason Derulo's "Whatcha Say", that track's catchy as hell, but he's getting dangerously close to one-hit wonder territory. The man needs to drop another hit, and soon.

5) Ok, if you can't hanle real talk you should probably stop reading now. So I saw Ke$ha on the charts and immediately thought she was some urban artist I'd somehow missed (you know, cause she's got a dollar sign in her name). Um, no. She's only urban in the sense that Vanilla Ice was "urban" (yeah, I went there). If you're in the mood for torturing your eardrums check out her single "Tik Tok", which is a disgraceful quasi-rap club thing that was co-signed by Diddy. What does Diddy have to do to have his hip-hop credentials taken away? Can we form a committee to look into this please.