Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 15), earning 167,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 6, according to Luminate. It’s the rapper’s third chart-topper and launches with the year’s third-largest debut, by units earned, and the biggest week of the year for any rap or R&B/hip-hop album.
Further, Pink Tape brings a rap album to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the first time in 2023, marking the longest wait in a calendar year for rap set to lead the list since 1993. That year, the chart didn’t see a rap set top the tally until Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday opened at No. 1 on the Aug. 7, 1993-dated chart (two years before Uzi was born on July 31, 1995).
The last rap album to lead the Billboard 200 prior to Pink Tape was Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains, which spent one week atop the chart dated Dec. 17, 2022. The 29-week gap between Metro and Uzi is the longest the Billboard 200 has gone without a rap album at No. 1 since 1992-93, when 34 weeks separated Ice Cube’s The Predator (one week at No. 1, Dec. 5, 1992, chart) and Cypress Hill’s first of two weeks at No. 1 with Black Sunday (Aug. 7, 1993).
Between Heroes & Villains and Pink Tape were six different No. 1s: SZA’s SOS notched 10 nonconsecutive weeks atop the list, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time logged 15 nonconsecutive frames, and four albums each led for one week during that span – TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation, Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito, Taylor Swift’s Midnights and Stray Kids’ 5-STAR.
Also in the new top 10 of the Billboard 200, aespa notches its second top 10-charting set as third mini album MY WORLD bows at No. 9, and Rylo Rodriguez scores his first top 10 with the No. 10 bow of Been One.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new July 15, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 11. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Pink Tape’s 167,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending July 6, SEA units comprise 154,000 (equaling 210.39 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 26 songs – the largest streaming week of 2023 for any rap or R&B/hip-hop title), album sales comprise 11,000 and TEA units comprise 2,000.
Lil Uzi Vert announced Pink Tape’s June 30 release just four days earlier, on June 26.
Uzi previously hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Eternal Atake in 2020 and Luv Is Rage 2 in 2017. The rapper hit the top 10 with Pluto x Baby Pluto, a No. 2-peaking collaborative set with Future in 2020.
Back on the new Billboard 200, Wallen’s One Thing at a Time falls to No. 2 with 110,000 equivalent album units earned (down less than 1%) after 15 nonconsecutive weeks atop the list – the most weeks at No. 1 since Adele’s 21 logged 24 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2011-12. One Thing at a Time has earned in excess of 100,000 equivalent album units in all 18 of its chart weeks. It extends its own record as the album with the most weeks of 100,000-plus units since the Billboard 200 began ranking titles by units in December of 2014.
Peso Pluma’s Génesis holds at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in its second week with 68,000 units (down 7%), Swift’s Midnights is also a non-mover at No. 4 with 54,000 (down 5%), Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album climbs 7-5 with 48,000 (up 2%), SZA’s SOS rises 8-6 with 44,000 units (down 6%) and Gunna’s A Gift & a Curse falls 5-7 with nearly 44,000 (down 20%)
Swift’s chart-topping Lover climbs 9-8 on the latest Billboard 200 with 43,000 equivalent album units earned (up 1%). Swift’s most recent album release, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), a re-recorded edition of her 2010 No. 1 album Speak Now, bowed on Friday, July 7. If Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) premieres at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated July 22, it would mark Swift’s 12th No. 1 – surpassing Barbra Streisand for the most No. 1s among women. All 11 of Swift’s full-length studio albums and re-recorded projects from 2008’s Fearless through 2022’s Midnights have debuted at No. 1. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is Swift’s third re-recorded project, following Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version), both in 2021.
Aespa’s MY WORLD debuts at No. 9 with 40,000 equivalent album units, marking the second top 10-charting set for the Korean group. Of that sum, album sales comprise 39,000 (making the set the top-selling album of the week), SEA units comprise 1,000 (equaling 1.33 million on-demand official streams of the set’s six tracks) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
MY WORLD was initially released in the U.S. via retail download and streaming services on May 5, but did not chart on the Billboard 200 until now, following its CD release on June 30.
Like many K-pop releases, the CD edition of MY WORLD was issued in collectible CD packages (more than 16, including exclusive editions for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and the act’s webstore), each containing a standard set of branded merchandise items and randomized branded elements (such as photo cards, posters and stickers). Effectively all of the album’s sales in the week ending July 6 were on the CD format, with a negligible sum generated by digital download album purchases. The set was not released on any other retail format (cassette, vinyl, etc.).
Rapper Rylo Rodriguez closes out the top 10 with his first top 10-charting set, as Been One debuts at No. 10 with 35,000 equivalent album units earned. SEA units comprise effectively all of that sum, equaling 47.93 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 19 songs. (Album sales and TEA units combine total a negligible sum.) Been One is the artist’s second charting effort, following the No. 37-peaking G.I.H.F. (Goat in Human Form) in 2020.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
