Kodak Black dropped his first post-jail project, Dying to Live, this past week on Dec. 14, and it's already received an endorsement from Drake. Despite the messiness of the promotional efforts leading up to its release, specifically with his appearance on Hot 97, it's looking as though all the surrounding controversy actually paid off.
Hits Daily Double reports that Dying to Live made an impressive debut this week, and is expected to garner a total of 60-70 thousand album equivalent units, 4-7 of which will be pure album sales. If all goes according to plan, it will be the Folrida rapper's first number one album. The other new releases of the week didn't fare quite as well, although the soundtrack for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is expected to pull in an impressive 35-45 thousand album equivalent units. Bruce Springsteen's On Broadway will likely end the tracking week with 32-37 thousand album equivalent units.
One artist who won't be popping champagne this week is Zayn Malik, whose massive 28-track album, Icarus Falls, underperformed, with a projected 15-20 thousand album-equivalent units sold. It's quite the drop-off from his debut album, Mind of Mine, which debuted with an impressive 157,000 album-equivalent units, 112,000 of which were pure album sales. The lack of marketing leading up to the Icarus release likely had something to do with its underwhelming performance.
As for Kodak Black, his numbers were likely boosted by an eventful few weeks. He caused controversy recently, when he walked out on his Hot 97 interview after Ebro brought up the sexual assault allegations against him. Ebro's co-host, Peter Rosenberg, defended the decision to bring up the allegations, stating, “It would be irresponsible for us to do the show, where we talk about all the things we talk about, social justice, the #MeToo movement, Trump...to have the artist on the show, talk about how talented the artist is, and never once mention that in April he faces sexual assault charges for a woman raped in a hotel room.”
