Lil Wayne, one of the world's best-selling rappers, has known for the past week that he would have the #1 album in the country with his Tha Carter III finally making its way onto record store shelves — it was merely a matter of how high the numbers would ultimately be. After selling some 400,000 copies in its first day, everyone knew Tha Carter III had a great chance of selling more than 900,000 albums, with 1 million in first-week sales within a tattooed arm's reach.
Well, Weezy nation has spoken, and how: According to the latest sales figures from Nielsen SoundScan, Tha Carter III sold 1 million and change, and did so even after most of the album's tracks leaked months ago. The disc has earned the distinction of being the first studio offering since 50 Cent's 2005 LP The Massacre to sell more than 1 million copies in a single week. The only other artist to come close to that total was Kanye West, whose 2007 set Graduation put up opening week sales of 957,000.
Tha Carter III is Weezy's first album to open at #1 on Billboard's weekly albums sales chart. His previous best sales week came in 2005, when Tha Carter II bowed at #2, with 238,500 scans.
So, what does Wayne think about his monumental success? Well, he's pretty humble.
"Thank you, that's it," he told MTV News when asked about the album's first-week sales projections. "[I'm] just very grateful, that's it. Blown away, of course. Surprised, of course. Elated. Every positive word there is.
"I wasn't trippin' about this," he said about his numbers. "I didn't have no expectations. That's not only with music, [that's] period. You shouldn't expect anything. You never know what could happen."
Better than any quote he could give, Wayne responded to his huge sales with a freestyle over the beat from his track "A Milli": "A milli-on sold, first day, I went gold/ How do I celebrate?/ Work on Tha Carter IV/ ... Shout out to every DJ/ Bootleggers, I made history anyway."
Wayne starts his Carter III tour on June 27. He also told MTV News that he and T-Pain are forming a supergroup.
(Right click to download)*i.s.l.m. footnote --- track is bonkers.
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