Thirteen years after its release, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III has surpassed a billion streams on Spotify.
The landmark achievement arrives just a few weeks after the 13th anniversary of the project. Earlier this month, Weezy took to Instagram to reflect on the 6x platinum album, which upon its release became the last rap LP to sell one million copies in its first week.
“Happy 13th to the project that really showed me my fans/supporters have love for me,” Wayne captioned a photo of the Carter III cover art. “We did ‘Amilli’ the first week in a time where sales were down because of piracy/bootlegging!!! For that I’ll forever be grateful!”
Released on June 10, 2008, Tha Carter III sold 423,000 copies on its first day and 1,005,545 copies in the first week of its release. The album debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart, earning Wayne his first No. 1 debut and his sixth Top 10 album.
Carter III scored the largest first week sales for any album in 2008 in the United States, and was the first album to reach the million mark in one week since 50 Cent’s 2005 LP The Massacre.
At the time, Wayne responded to his impressive sales performance with a freestyle over the beat from the Carter III standout “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.”
