Drake’s sixth studio album Certified Lover Boydebuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with the biggest week in just over a year.
Certified Lover Boy accumulated 613,000 equivalent album units, of which 562,000 accounted for streaming, equaling a staggering 743.67 million on-demand streams, with 28.84 million coming from video on-demand streams. Only one album has achieved a higher streaming total in a single week, and it was 745.92 million by Drake’s last album Scorpion.
It became clear early on that Drake’s latest offering was on pace for historic streaming numbers after becoming the most-streamed album on Apple Music in a day, and setting a new high mark for single-day streams on Spotify. CLB also out-streamed the first-week totals of Kanye West’s Donda in a mere three days.
Taylor Swift’s Folklore was the last album to score a bigger debut after moving 846,000 units last August. Additionally, her sixth studio effort, Reputation, was the only album to outperform Drake in a single week when it debuted with 1.24 million units.
Other accolades for Certified Lover Boy include having the biggest week for a rap album since—you guessed it—Scorpion. What makes Drake’s most recent accomplishment all the more impressive is that his latest album wasn’t propelled by pre-release singles, whereas Scorpion had three Billboard Hot 100 songs in “God’s Plan,” “Nice for What,” and “I’m Upset.”
Drake joins rarified air as only the eighth artist with at least 10 No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, joining the likes of Kanye, Jay-Z, and Eminem.
