Hip Hop Album Sales: The Week Ending 2/10/08

Although last week's Grammy Awards were the third least watched in its history (drawing a lackluster audience of only 17.5 million), the performing artists have seen a large surge in record sales. Jack Johnson remains in the top spot followed by none other than troubled songstress Amy Winehouse who performed via satellite from the UK. Winehouse's Back to Black sold 115k this week (a 368.4% increase from last week's sales of under 25k). Alicia Keys (also a Grammy) remains in the #3 spot this week, however, she did manage to sell over 100k units to officially enter triple platinum status in just 14 weeks on the charts.

After winning the coveted "Album of the Year" Grammy award, jazz musician Herbie Hancock (whose past songs have been remixed and sampled by the likes of popular Hip Hop producer Madlib) had an astounding leap from #159 to #5 on the charts. Herbie's award marked the first time since 1964 that a jazz artist has captured the Album of the Year. Meanwhile Grammy performer John Legend jumped from #62 to #12 selling 40k units (a 209% sales increase).

Top 200 Album Sales (Top 5 Hip Hop/R&B)

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Total
2	Amy Winehouse	Back To Black	115,309	1,649,181
3	Alicia Keys	As I Am	108,840	3,096,471
11	Mary J Blige	Growing Pains	48,563	1,125,617
12	John Legend	Live from Philadelphia	40,431	123,673
13	Chris Brown	Exclusive	39,691	1,287,896

Still no waves being made in Hip Hop as it continues to starve for a high-selling artist. With the recent announcement of his upcoming tour, Kanye West managed to create enough buzz to land him the top Rap spot on the charts (#40) and finally hit double platinum, while tour-mate Lupe Fiasco undersold Kanye by less than 100 units and grabbed the #42 spot. Lupe won his first Grammy last week for "Best Urban/Alternative Performance". With all of the shuffling around on the charts, Soulja Boy drops 20 spots from #36 to #56 selling under 25k units.

Other Notables

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Total
40	Kanye West	Graduation	22,620	2,005,808
42	Lupe Fiasco	The Cool	22,565	339,384
56	Soulja Boy	Souljaboytellem.com	19,251	783,822
68	Jay-Z	American Gangster	15,259	993,621
74	Raheem DeVaughn	Love Behind The Melody	13,584	103,893

Next month, legend Pete Rock drops his highly anticipated New York's Finest, along with new albums by Erykah Badu, Rick Ross, Akrobatik, and many more. It's getting warmer this February, but will the charts reflect it?