Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly Debuts at No. 1
With No. 1 debuts from Drake and Big Sean, hip hop has been ruling over the Billboard album charts this year, and the streak continues with Kendrick Lamar.
To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar’s second major label release, debuts in first place on the Top 200 with 318,988 copies sold, according to Hits Daily Double. Billboard will release an official breakdown of digital sales vs. physical copies.
The album made it to retail stores after it was mistakenly put on iTunes a week in advance of the March 23 release date. TPAB smashed Spotify records with over nine million streams in one day, trumping the previous bench mark set by Drake’s If You Reading This It’s Too Late.
Additionally, TPAB’s sales feat marks Lamar’s first No. 1 album, and highest first week figures since 2012’s good kid m.A.A.d. city moved 242,000 copies. That album, K Dot’s first on a major label, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200.
The 27-year-old Compton emcee has been celebrating TPAB with album release signings in New York and his hometown, along with free pop-up shows.
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(Photo: Mike Windle/Getty Images for Reebok)
