J. Cole's comeback has been going swimmingly and it's only getting more impressive as each day passes. If you didn't hear, the Fayetteville native's seventh studio LP, The Fall-Off, officially went number one. Projections were strong all throughout last week and unsurprisingly, they held up.
The 24-song set sold a healthy 280,000 equivalent units, more than enough for a number one debut. Bad Bunny's DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS was behind him with a still strong 250,000 copies. The breakdown reveals that 167K of that figure was from streaming. Pure album sales (CDs and vinyl) brought in 113K. Lastly, 500 were a result of track-equivalent album units.
But there's another layer that's even more outstanding, if you can believe it. With J. Cole being back on top for a seventh time in a row, he's now one of just six rappers to achieve this.
Per Bars, the others to do this with studio albums include Drake, Kanye West, Future, Eminem and Jay-Z. For Cole this streak dates back to his 2011 debut, The Sideline Story. If you go back and look at these seven projects, none of them sold under 215,000 units. The Sideline Story brought in the smallest number of sales, hitting 218K per XXL. In case you were curious, Cole's best debut is 2016's 4 Your Eyez Only with a staggering 492,000.
J. Cole "Trunk Sale" Tour
While we are sure the North Carolina icon is going to be humble about this feat, his longtime manager and business partner, Ibrahim Hamad, took to his X to congratulate him (and boast on his behalf).
"7 albums 7 #1’s. Throw in some classic mixtapes, an insane catalogue of Features, The revenge series, some amazing EP’s etc. etc. etc. Forever grateful for my brother to allow me to be a part of this [prayer hands emoji]. Cole is one of one for sure [goat emoji]," he wrote as caught by 2Cool2Blog.
With all of the hype still being present for The Fall-Off as we speak, we are sure the album will see sustained success in the weeks ahead. The "Trunk Sale" tour, which J. Cole kicked off one day after the tape's release, has been a wholesome but also smart way to promote more sales.
It's still a little up in the air if these will factor into future sales week tallies; however, fans have been loving the personable gesture from one of modern rap's all-time greats.
