21 Savage took over this week with his "f**k the streets" messages with Young Thug and many more... How did that contribute to the commercial performance of his new album WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS? Well, we now officially know, as Billboard revealed its final first week sales numbers and its debut on their 200 albums chart.
According to the publication, WHTTS? debuted at No. 3 on the chart behind Taylor Swift's The Life Of A Showgirl at No. 1 and Morgan Wallen's I'm The Problem at No. 2. Savage's new LP sold 73K album-equivalent units, which is somewhere in between initial projections and the latest ones. 48K of those are streaming units (almost 66 million streams across the tracklist) and 25K are in pure album sales, with track-equivalent units providing a negligible sum. It's the Atlanta MC's seventh Billboard 200 top five placement.
According to Kurrco, Billboard filtered about 37K units in pure album sales from its final tally, for reasons unknown. While some fans launched botting allegations, there were also various projected numbers floating around. As such, take everything with a grain of salt.
21 Savage's WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS?
All that said, we doubt the Savage Mode spitter is worrying too much about the specifics of numbers when it comes to his public movement. Instead, 21 Savage is leading "f**k the streets" messages across hip-hop, tagging peers like Young Thug, Future, Quavo, Offset, Meek Mill, G Herbo, and more along for the ride.
This all seems to be an effort to promote more unity in Atlanta rap and beyond, given their turbulent past few years. But some fans think this whole thing actually does represent a desire to boost sales for the album. Whether you believe that or not, the negative reception is manifesting in other ways.
Many other MCs don't agree with 21 Savage. Folks like 6ix9ine, Blueface, Lil Zay Osama, BossMan Dlow, and more have pushed back against these messages, calling them hypocritical, disingenuous, or disrespectful.
Sadly, there's almost an equally divisive debate around first week sales numbers these days, no matter who folks are talking about. Hopefully the final debut means that they can move on to other conversations and discussions.
With all this in mind, we will see how the legacy of WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STREETS? continues to evolve.
