New Orleans rapper
Juvenile achieved his first No. 1 album this week, with Reality Check debuting
atop the Billboard 200 album chart.
The album, which
sold more than 174,000 copies in its initial week of release, also took the
top spot on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart.
Reality Check
features the single "Rodeo," as well as collaborations with Fat Joe,
Ludacris, Bun B, Paul Wall and Mike Jones, among others.
Songs on the New
Orleans resident’s album accused President Bush of failing to act before and
after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city. The rapper lost his property and
possessions in the late 2004 disaster.
A scandal erupted
in Feb. 2005, after the Associated Press unearthed a videotape emerged swing
Bush’s top advisors warning him the levees could be topped.
"The levee
was breached, but not by water," Juvenile told AllHipHop.com in a recent
interview. "It was breached by military, by military firearms..the water
was backing up in the wrong areas: the tourist areas. And they knew it, and
it was backing up in areas where some strong people was politically. Now you
got [wealthy real estate barons] down there, buying up all the property – now
it’s a big business venture. If you didn’t pay your taxes on your
property – and half of the people weren’t able to pay taxes, you know –
a lot of people lost their money for real."
The album is Juvenile’s
seventh and his first on Atlantic. The rapper signed with Atlantic in 2004 after
a falling out with his longtime label Cash Money.
Juvenile’s previous
chart peak was 2001’s Project English, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard
200 album chart.