The first-week sales contest between 50 Cent’s Curtis and Kanye West’s Graduation ended as I imagined it would: with everyone taking home bundles of cash. As many predicted, Kanye (pictured, left) did outsell Fiddy (right), moving 957,000 copies of his disc (the biggest first week since 50’s The Massacre sold 1.1 million CDs out of the box two and a half years ago), but Curtis Jackson should be plenty pleased with selling 691,000 copies of Curtis. According to Billboard, this is the first time since the release of Guns N’ Roses two Use Your Illusion albums — 16 Septembers ago — that two discs have debuted with more than 600,000 in sales. (In third place, Kenny Chesney’s sales of 387,000 for Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, is the best first week for a country disc since the Dixie Chicks moved 526,000 units of Taking the Long Way a year and a half ago. See, everybody wins!)
Meanwhile, 50 doesn’t sound like he’s going to make good on his promise to retire if he came in second. In a statement, he told the Associated Press, "I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest albumrelease weeks in the last two years. Collectively, we have soldhundreds of thousands of units in our debut week. This marks a greatmoment for hip-hop music, one that will go down in history." Besides, 50 came out ahead of Kanye in one key measure: he earned almost twice what West did last year. The boss of the G-Unit empire took home $32 million last year, landing him in second place on Forbes‘ list of hip-hop’s top earners; Kanye finished in 8th place with $17 million. Fiddy has celebrated this victory by remixing his "I Got Money" with guest verses by Forbes‘ No. 1 and No. 3 top-earning rappers: Jay-Z and Diddy, respectively. (You can hear a clean version of it here and see the video here.)
Me, I’m just glad everybody’s happy, so that we won’t have to hear more about this faux feud anymore, and so that we can stop wringing our hands about the imminent death of hip-hop.
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What a surprise, 5Cent’s not retiring after all. If it’s possible, I hate that retard more than ever now.
I only bought Kanye’s album to get rid of “fiddy”. Can I get my money back?
pease don’t use the word ‘retard,’ it’s as ignorant as 50
pease don’t use the word ‘retard,’ it’s as ignorant as 50
god, who freakin’ cares? does anyone in the music industry honestly look at why the sales have gone down so much in recent years? because all we have to choose from is hip-hop and there are millions of record-buying people who are obviously NOT buying hip-hop. the biggest grossing concerts are classic rock and rock groups, not hip-hop…….wake up industry! hip-hop is on its way out and not a moment too soon!
I respect Kanye’s talent; not 50’s. But as a fan of the music industry, this is a welcome bit of good news. Finally, if only for a week, the sales are up. Of course, the key will be next week. How much will the sales decline?
I knew it was only hype, but DAMNIT, I was really hoping that Easter-island looking mutha would retire. I’m tired of his mush-mouth, don’t give-a-damn-about-music-and-only- about-the-money ASS.
“Easter-island looking”? Larry, you just made snot fly out of my nose! You’re a riot! That’s *perfect*!
TMI, Binkym. Too much information. Lol.
If you watched “Best Week Ever” they made fun of how everyone was saying the day of the c.d. release was monumental in hip hop. Not because of that whole 9/11 tragedy thing.
I saw that Stephen. That was just wrong but still very hilarious.
And babs, if you look past your animosity towards rap, you’ll see two bigger reasons why the music industry is in shams these days: the lack of talent. It’s not just most modern rappers that suck, but pretty much most new artists in every genre, even rock. Also, most of the sales are being sucked away by high school/college students illegally downloading entire albums rather than buying them. So what if Nickelback sold a lot more than a rap concert? That doesn’t represent the sales of albums at all (and Nickelback’s horrible anyway). It’s a shame that more artists are being forced to making ringtone hits, rather than cohesive albums because no one can sell albums anymore.
I wouldn’t even put Kanye and Fiddy in the category of a hip hop artist. They don’t create art they create commercialized top 20 bs. Let’s give real artists like The Roots, Lil Brother, and the like the opportunities that these music industry neophytes get.
I’m not happy. I’d hoped that 50 would keep his promise to retire. I’m also sure that all of those people who rushed out to buy Kanye’s cd in hopes of the same thing aren’t happy they wasted 20 bucks.
hiphop isn’t dead, but good hip hop is. i miss the good ole days
I knew it was too good to be true. Lying Liars who Lie!
Folks, 50 Cent admitted a couple weeks ago that the “retirement” thing was nothing but a publicity stunt, and you knew it was all along, so quit with the whining. You knew no one was going anywhere, just like with everyone else who “retires.” The man’s not even thirty; what would he do with himself? C’mon; think!
Why does anyone believe these liars? Why does anyone buy their lousy music? Why does 50 cents look like an escaped prisoner? Why does Kanye West think he is all that?
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wat da freak 50 still doing rappin. by da way kanye west in tight and wud murder 50 (hip hop aint dead jus took a couple shots homie. im a homie born and raised from da hood suckas[;
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