Another layer to the ongoing debate over longtime frenemies Kanye West and Drake just added another talking point. Drake’s Certified Lover Boy debuted atop the Billboard 200 by knocking West’s Donda down to #2.
Certified Lover Boy opened with 613,000 equivalent album units, the best first-week numbers of 2021. It is also the biggest sales week for any project since Taylor Swift’s Folklore collected 846,000 first-week units in 2020.
With 715 million on-demand streams, Certified Lover Boy only trails Drake’s Scorpion on the all-time list of best streaming weeks for an album. Scorpion pulled in 746 million streams in 2018.
CERTIFIED LOVER BOY
— Drizzy (@Drake) September 3, 2021
AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE https://t.co/4nRngO8hDT
In addition, Drake now has ten career Number Ones on the Billboard 200. That puts the OVO Sound frontman in a tie for second-most No. 1s by a Hip Hop artist. Drizzy sits alongside Kanye West and Eminem. Billionaire emcee Jay-Z has 14 chart-toppers.
Drake became just the eighth act with at least ten #1 projects. The Beatles (19) lead the list, followed by Jay-Z (14). Bruce Springsteen (11) and Barbra Streisand (11) are right behind Hov. Elvis Presley, Eminem, Drake, and Kanye West round out the Top 8 with ten each.
Kanye West scored his tenth #1 album just last week when Donda launched in the top spot with 309,000 units. The G.O.O.D. Music founder slipped to #2 this week when his tenth studio LP recorded another 141,000 units in week two.
The rest of the current Top 10 of the Billboard 200 rankings includes Doja Cat’s Planet Her at #5, The Kid LAROI’s F*ck Love at #8, and Rod Wave’s SoulFly at #10. Trip At Knight by Trippie Redd and We Love You Tecca 2 by Lil Tecca dropped out of the Top 10 this week.
While Certified Lover Boy is an undeniable commercial success, Drake’s most recent body of work has received mixed reactions from listeners. Based on 986 ratings, CLB presently has a 3.5/10 user score on Metacritic. The album received a 62/100 Metacritic grade from professional music reviewers.