Rihanna pulled out a nail-biter against Kevin Gates about a month and a half ago when their respective albums ANTI and Islah were released, barely edging him out for the top spot on the Billboard 200. After that week at number one, Rih's surprise release ceded its spot to Future's EVOL, Kendrick Lamar's untitled unmastered, and of course, Adele's commercial juggernaut 25 in between. Now, after a month at number two or lower, ANTI's back on top.
Billboard's chart for the week of March 17th records 54,000 equivalent album units for Rih, 17,000 of which were deemed pure album sales. The rest, 69% of the total, came from streaming. Elsewhere, Adele moves down to number 2, Justin Bieber's Purpose moves up to 3, untitled unmastered falls back to 5, Islah sits at number 9, and Flatbush Zombies' 3001: A Laced Odyssey debuts at number 10 with 28,000 EAUs. Interestingly enough, 24,000 (about 85%) of that number came from pure album sales. So even though they're several rungs below Rihanna, FBZ sold more actual albums this past week.
