Last summer, with her ubiquitous hit “Bodak Yellow,” Cardi B became the first female rapper since Lauryn Hill in 1998 to reach No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart with a fully solo release — that is, with no “feature” appearance by another artist (say, a male rapper).
Now, Cardi B has pulled off a similar feat on the album chart, as her “Invasion of Privacy” (KSR/Atlantic) opens at No. 1 with the equivalent of 255,000 album sales in the United States, according to Nielsen. As Billboard noted, she is only the fifth female rapper in history to top the chart, after Nicki Minaj, Eve, Foxy Brown and Ms. Hill.
“Invasion of Privacy” also had the highest streaming week ever for a female artist, with 202.6 million streams of tracks from the album, beating Beyoncé, who logged 115 million for “Lemonade” two years ago. In addition to the streams, “Invasion of Privacy” had 103,000 sales as a complete album, on formats like CD and download.
Also this week, Thirty Seconds to Mars, the rock band featuring the actor Jared Leto, opened at No. 2 with “America,” and the Weeknd’s new EP “My Dear Melancholy,” which started at No. 1 last week, fell to No. 3. The soundtrack to “The Greatest Showman” is in fourth place, and XXXTentacion’s “?” is No. 5.
Source: nytimes.com
