Until recently, the RIAA didn’t even count streams toward album sales, ignoring the way many hip-hop consumers listen to music.
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A 2016 Entertainment Retail Association study found that Millennials listen to 75% more music than Baby Boomers, but are also much more likely to stream or pirate music than their older counterparts, lowering potential chart impact. Hip-hop, on the other hand, skews much younger. Adele and Taylor Swift appeal to Millennials and Baby Boomers in equal measure, with the latter generation being much more likely to purchase physical copies of an album. According to Billboard, of the six albums released since 2001 that have moved at least eight million copies, only two have been rap albums pop dominates the rest. It would seem that no matter the quality or the exposure, hip-hop’s sales have stalled out when it comes to mega-smash albums. But even with those albums’ passionate proselytizers and success on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the story remains the same: sales that fail to exceed 2-3 million units. city, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Drake’s Take Care rule out that argument. Is hip-hop simply suffering from a dearth of classic albums? Critically praised projects like Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. However, it’s clear from the numbers that no rap album of the last decade is really on a diamond path. The amount of time it takes for a rap album to hit diamond varies greatly 2pac’s All Eyez On Me took 18 years, while OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below made it in only three-largely because of a double-disc technicality-and MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em achieved the certification in just one. The only hip-hop albums from this decade that are even in the same stratosphere are Eminem’s 2010 comeback album Recovery (4.7 million) and Lil Wayne’s 2008 blockbuster Tha Carter III (3.8 million), and that’s only if you consider “less than halfway there” close. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (August 1998) follows that with less than eight million, and the drop off after that album is steep. The closest, 50 Cent’s classic Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sits at roughly 8.4 million units shipped according to Billboard it came out in February 2003. No hip-hop album released in the last decade is close to diamond certification. If sales trends continue, it might be the last. On July 25, Country Grammar joined the ranks of Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below as the eighth diamond-certified hip-hop album in history after moving ten million units in the U.S.
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Attending college more than a decade after its original release, I recall hearing “Ride Wit Me” and “Country Grammar (Hot Shit)” at parties more times than I can count. Nelly’s debut album Country Grammar, released on June 27, 2000, was a Y2K staple with a curiously long shelf life.