J. Cole is back atop the album chart once again.
On Sunday (May 23), the top 10 of Billboard's Billboard 200 chart was unveiled, revealing J. Cole's new album, The Off-Season, unsurprisingly debuted at No. 1. Cole ended the week with an impressive 282,000 equivalent album units with 2,000 traditional albums.
This is the biggest rap album of the year so far, by far. Cole's new release more than doubled the first week of Rod Wave's SoulFly album, the previous best with 130,000 EAU in its first week. Even more impressive, this also marks the sixth straight No. 1 album for Cole.
Cole's new album features 12 songs. Unlike his previous projects, the North Carolina rapper chose to collaborate on this outing, using uncredited guest vocals from 21 Savage, Morray, Lil Baby, Camr'ron, Diddy, 6lack and others. For production, Cole taps Timbaland, Boi-1da, DJ Dahi, Jake One and more. Cole, who is currently in Rwanda playing professional basketball, celebrated his latest No. 1 on social media on May 22.
"Sending a thank you from Rwanda! #1 album, I appreciate the love, i heard the noise from out here," the Dreamville boss posted on Twitter. "The off-season means keep pushing yourself, I will do the same."
Other hip-hop artists moving enough units to place in this week's Billboard 200 top 10 include Nicki Minaj (Beam Me Up Scotty, No. 2), MoneyBagg Yo (A Gangsta's Pain, No. 3), DJ Khaled (Khaled Khaled, No. 8) and Pop Smoke (Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, No. 10).
See Hip-Hop Albums Turning 10 in 2021