Gucci Mane's gentle post-prison demeanor took many by surprise and even fueled a conspiracy theory that a Gucci clone had been released and the real Guwop was still in prison.

Hearing Sway Calloway introduce his radio show's centerpiece, the "Five Fingers Of Death" challenge, is truly something to behold. Abruptly switching gears from his softer interview tone, he'll adopt an Ali-esque swagger and go off the top to hype up the segment, saying things like, "There ain't no smoke, there's no mirrors, this ain't Hollywood." It's theatrical, yes, but the challenge, which asks rappers to freestyle over five random (and often very eclectic) beats selected by DJ Wonder, is one of the most difficult in the industry.

The elite class of athletes and musicians share much in common -- wealth, fame, a central role in popular culture. So it should not come as a surprise that there is, generally speaking, a great mutual respect between rappers and athletes. Sometimes this respect engenders friendship. Sometimes it engenders rappers and athletes throwing each other alley-oops... on and off the court.

This week, we saw the debut of Lecrae, an artist who -- with the Christian rap audience behind him -- managed to score a #1 debut with his last project, Anomaly. Rather than a proper follow-up to that album, Church Clothes 3 is a continuation of his popular mixtape series, and therefor places at 12 this week, a pretty admirable showing considering.

LeCrae has been fucking up the Christian hip hop game for some time now. His last album, 2014's Anomaly, debuted at #1 on the charts. This morning, LeCrae surprises his fans with a new mixtape, Church Clothes 3.

This week we only have one new entry so to speak of, and it's r'n'b/pop singer Jennifer Hudson with her newly-released JHUD. The album didn't do very much damage on the charts, but it still enters within the Billboard's top 10. Chris Brown, though, is still moving more than JHUD with his album X's second week on shelves. The album saw a four-spot this week, bringing total sales closer to the 200k mark, but not quite there yet.

This week Chris Brown makes his Billboard 200 debut with his new album X. The singer went above and beyond the projected sales, moving 146,000 copies opening week. As some people noticed, on Twitter Chris Brown tweeted that X had sold 495k, according to the Billboard Consumption Chart. He tweeted, "TEAM BREEZY! The billboard consumption number for X is 495K! X is GOLD already! Thank you!

Lecrae is on the way to becoming a household name, which is a feat for a rapper, let alone a Christian rapper. The rapper made an impressive debut this past week, with Anomaly topping the Billboard 200 and selling just under 100k, with 88,000. While the sales projections indicated it'd be a close race between Jhene Aiko and Lecrae, Lecrae came out the clear winner.

The race between Lecrae and Jhene Aiko for the Billboard 200 #1 spot was a close one, but Lecrae has come out on top. The rapper's new album Anomaly snagged a #1 debut, after moving a reported 88,299 units, according to Hits Daily Double. 

Lecrae's new album Anomaly hit the shelves on September 9th, but for those hesitant listeners, Lecrae has decided to provide a full album stream.

When hip-hop began, samples were all that DJs and producers had to construct instrumental tracks with. They'd dig through crates of vinyl trying to find isolated drum breaks, melodies or vocals that they could repurpose for use in hip-hop music. Today, sampling has become less common, but a choice sample can still push a track from lukewarm to hot faster than you can say "uh-huh honey". 

The first week sales projections for Lecrae's Anomaly and Jhene Aiko's Souled Out are in, and they're not what you might imagine. Expected to hit the number one spot this week, Lecrae's Anomaly is looking end its first seven-day period with a solid 75,000-80,000 copies sold--an impressive figure for a "Christian Hip-Hop" artist. Lecrae's last album, Gravity, debuted to similar numbers and sold in excess of 150,000 copies before falling off the charts.

Both Lecrae and Andy Mineo were two rappers featured on our recent list of 5 Christian Hip-Hop Artists Infiltrating the Mainstream, and as they continue to do just that, they're linking up for a tour centered around Lecrae's new album Anomaly.

In 2012, Christian spitter Lecrae made history by becoming the first rapper to win the "Best Gospel Album" Grammy for his project Gravity, which featured contributions from Big K.R.I.T., No Malice, 9th Wonder, Boi-1da and many more. Now he's gearing up for the release of his follow-up, which he announced earlier this month would be titled Anomaly.

Katy Perry and Juicy J's "Dark Horse" has certainly been doing work on the charts this year, but not everyone's a fan. Christian rappers Lecrae, Flame and John Reilly are now suing Perry, Juicy, and producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin for the song's allegd similarities to their 2008 song "Joyful Noise."

Following up his Grammy Award winning album, Gravity, from 2012, Christian hip-hop star, Lecrae, is getting ready to bless us with his next project this summer.

With the rise of digital music, decline of music sales, and mass growth and adoption of social networks and blogs, we have seen the playing field become leveled. With that has come fewer major label releases and a lion share of independent releases. With a small number of Hip Hop albums surpassing the milestone of 100,000 sales these days - or even half that number, it has become easier to gain awareness.

This past week we did receive quite a few massive hip-hop records, including a new banger from the Young Money crew, a massive remix of YG's "My Nigga," and a stand-out ScHoolboy Q record "Break The Ban

Eminem week officially hit us with full force. We've seen legendary rappers like Jay Z and Kanye West both drop albums this past year, but none compared to the chart domination of Slim Shady. As we mentioned last week, a few of Em's old albums had popped back up on the Billboard 200, presumably due to anticipation for new one, MMLP2.

HNHH: You were the first rapper to win a Grammy for a gospel album - What was the first thing that ran through your mind when you found out?