Eleven weeks after the release of Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday”, the album has climbed to number one on the Billboard charts over in America. The debut studio album from the Young Money vixen was released back in November, on the same week as Kanye West dropped “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and Lloyd Banks released “Hunger for More 2”.
The album, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews from most critics across the globe, debuted at number two in the U.S charts, with sales of 375,000, making it the second highest first week sales for a female Hip-Hop recording artist, behind the legendary Miss Lauryn Hill for her 1998 classic “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”. Minaj was beaten to the number one spot that week thanks to Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, which moved a total of 496,000 copies in its first week.
“Pink Friday” hasn’t sold as well this side of the Atlantic, with it peaking at 45 on our own Irish charts and 34 over in the UK. The movement of Nicki’s “Barbz” however seems to be catching on in Europe, following her visit to the UK and France last month where she caused mayhem, even being kicked out of her UK hotel after eager fans proved too hard to handle.
Last week she debuted the new video for her latest single “Moment for Life” where she reenacted a Cinderella style wedding with Young Money label-mate Drake. The video, which was previewed exclusively by RapIreland.com, has already clocked up over 3 million views on Youtube.
This week also marks another milestone for the Queens rapper. Pink Friday pushed past the one million mark; selling 1,035,000 total since its US release. Things are going from strength to strength for Minaj; tomorrow should also see her collab with Drake hit number one on Billboard’s Rap chart, whilst last Saturday she made her first appearance on comedy show Saturday Night Live. Fans were treated to performances of “Right Thru Me” and “Moment for Life”, as well as a Nicki team up with Lonely Island for a song called “The Creep”.
The number 1 album makes her the first female rapper to do so since Eve’s 1999 debut “Let There Be Eve”. On hearing the news Nicki Tweeted to her followers “We finally did it! PINK FRIDAY is the #1 Album in the United States of America!!!!! *faints* thank u sooooo much for the continued support!”
Congratulations Nicki, from all at Rap Ireland!
The Creep – Nicki Minaj and the Lonely Island
Blazin – Nicki Minaj featuring Kanye West
us irish barbz will get her to no.1 here too 🙂