Kanye West’s Donda debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 in the biggest week for an album release this year (surpassing Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour), Billboard reports. The album landed at the top of the charts with 309,000 equivalent album units.
With Donda, Kanye Eminem has again set the record for the most number 1 consecutive debuts in the album charts. Eminem split with Music to Be Murdered By in early 2020. Both artists only missed number 1 once – with their respective debut albums.
West is one of only seven artists in chart history to have released ten chart top albums (alongside the Beatles, JAY-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Eminem and Elvis Presley). It was also the biggest week of streaming for an album in 2021, surpassing J. Cole’s The Off-Season. Halsey’s new album debuted at number 2.
The album arrived on the morning of Sunday August 29th after three auditions and several delays, leaving the album with only five days of chart activity in its first week. Though Donda was due to be released on September 3, West said his label released the record last week without his consent – an Instagram post he has since deleted. He released a video for the album track “Come to Life”, in which he used footage from the third Donda listening event at Soldier Field in Chicago. A Donda stem player was made available for listeners to develop their own remixes.
Read Pitchfork’s features “5 Takeaways from Kanye West’s Donda” and “Ranking Every Guest Appearance on Kanye West’s Donda From Worst to Best”.
