LAMAR SCORES BIGGEST U.S. ALBUM RELEASE
Happy Days, NEW YORK: Kendrick Lamar has pulled off the biggest United States album debut this year with DAMN., an introspective work of hip-hop storytelling that features Rihanna and U2.
DAMN. sold 603,000 copies or the equivalent in streaming and downloads in the week since its April 14 release, tracking service Nielsen Music said on Saturday.
Entering at number one on the benchmark Billboard chart, DAMN. sold more in a single week than any other album so far this year.
DAMN. follows Lamar’s 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly, which has quickly been hailed as a hip-hop classic with its innovative infusion of jazz and its lyricism that explored the state of black America.
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DAMN., which brings a more classic rap style, is a highly personal work. It culminates with a track in which Lamar recalls his father being shot while working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken branch in Los Angeles.
While there are political references, Lamar said he did not want to focus too much on President Donald Trump.
“I wanted more self-evaluation because of what’s going on now,” he told Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio.
“We’re not focusing on him. What’s going on now, we’re focusing on self.”
Lamar’s track Alright from To Pimp a Butterfly became an unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The rapper’s admirers include former president Barack Obama, who invited Lamar to the White House.
Lamar topped the More Life collection by Drake, the Toronto rapper known more for crowd-pulling dance tracks than social commentary, which had earlier held the crown for biggest US album release of the year.
But DAMN. remains well below Drake’s last album Views, which sold more than a million copies in its first week.
The comparative sales figures are sure to be scrutinised as Lamar and Drake have made a series of critical comments about each other. AFP
Reuters