The Drake takeover is upon us, and that was clear even before the projections hit.
Drizzy’s 21-song album Certified Lover Boy, released on Friday after months of pushbacks and promotion via a signature heart design in the rapper’s hair, is projected to gross somewhere between 575,000 and 625,000 album equivalent units in its first week, according to Hits Daily Double, potentially marking the biggest week for an album since Taylor Swift surprise-dropped Folklore in July 2020.
As Hits notes, Swift opened with 846,000 in her first week, but these numbers put Drizzy on track to have the largest debut of 2021. Drake’s debut will include somewhere between 45,000 and 55,000 albums sold, and CLB is projected to see between 650 and 700 million streams by the end of the week.
The project has speedily smashed records, some already held by the 6 God himself, including the Apple Music record for the most streamed album in a day ever, and the Spotify record for the same stat. On Spotify, Drizzy’s CLB has earned 153 million streams in a day, while it also beat out his own 2018 effort Scorpion to pass the same Apple record.
Kanye West previously held the 2021 Apple Music record for most-streamed album in a single day for his Donda album, which dropped on Sunday. His official first-week numbers were initially expected to land around 350,000 album equivalent units. On Friday, word came that the final total is just under 328,000, with more than 44,000 coming from traditional sales.
Jay-Z, Lil Baby, Young Thug, Lil Durk, Lil Wayne, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, Yebba, Future, and more appear on CLB—and quite a few of them on Donda, too.
