(AllHipHop News) Albums sales are not always a great indication of quality, but the numbers do help determine how popular a particular act is on a mainstream level. Rick Ross definitely earned his spot as one of the top tier rappers in the game by consistently putting out #1 albums over the last 10 years. But has Rozay been surpassed by his Maybach Music Group protégés Meek Mill and Wale?
All three MMG stars released studio albums this year. Most recently, Ross dropped his 8th LP Black Market. According to early predictions, the project is expected to sell between 50,000 and 55,000 units in its opening week. Ross’ Mastermind sold 179,000 copies in its first week in 2014, and later that year Hood Billionaire sold 74,000 copies in its initial seven days.
Besides a significant falloff after just one year, Ross has also fallen behind the sales of Wale and Meek. In March, Wale’s The Album About Nothing sold 88,000 copies out the gate and opened at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Three months later Meek Mill released Dreams Worth More Than Money which sold over 215,000 copies in its first week. The Philadelphia native’s sophomore album spent two weeks at #1. In addition, he was among only five Hip Hop artists to sell over 200,000 units in one week in 2015 (Drake, Drake & Future, Kendrick Lamar, Dr. Dre).
So will 2015 go down as the year the pupils surpassed the master in popularity with the masses? Regardless of the answer to that question, the MMG legacy is far from over. The camp is set to release the fourth volume of the label’s Self Made compilations, and Meek has been putting together his Dreamchasers 4 mixtape.
