Hip Hop Album Sales: Week Ending 3/10/08

The calm before the storm of Fat Joe, Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross affected the charts little this week. As Country star Alan Jackson, and former accomplice of Rock-rappin' outfit G. Love & Special Sauce, Jack Johnson held down the #1 and #2 spots, R&B occupied much of the Top 10, with queens throughout the '80s, '90s and present-day holding the slots with four very distinctly-created albums.

For the second week in a row, Baton Rouge, Louisiana's Webbie proved to be Asylum/Atlantic Records' latest success story, with Savage Life Volume 2 holding the #11 position, based off the the strong single "Independent."

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

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Total
3	Janet Jackson	Discipline	57,398	238,850
6	Erykah Badu	New Amerykah	41,466	165,591
8	Alicia Keys	As I Am	38,486	3,245,328
11	Webbie	Savage Life Vol 2	28,652	101,459
13	Mary J Blige	Growing Pains	37,507	1,321,304

Further down the charts, the usual suspects of Soulja Boy, Kanye West and Jay-Z all remained active on the charts, as Lupe Fiasco continues to prove his consistent success, with The Cool coming in at #35, but Food & Liquor also scanning over a 1,000 units this week on the Rap/Hip Hop Top 100. His partial label-mate Shawty Lo did not fare as well, dropping significantly from a strong start last week. Cult favorite Joe Budden is also making a convincing argument that albums made off of mixtapes are suffering in the marketplace, despite rave reviews. His Amalgam Digital retail release has yet to find position in the Top 200.

Other Notables

Rank	Artist	Album	This Week	Total
35	Lupe Fiasco	The Cool	16,218	392,488
46	Shawty Lo	Units In The City	13,774	44,942
55	Soulja Boy	SouljaBoyTellEm.com	12,600	826,382
141	Lil' Flip	All Eyes On Us	5,347	5,393
--	Joe Budden	Mood Muzik 3	734	1,893

Chart holders ought not get too comfortable though, as March's premier releases from Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross and Fat Joe are likely to challenge many of these spots next week.