Kenya West wins Battle with J.Cole

Kanye Westreturns to reclaim his throne atop the Billboard 200 as his sixth album‘Yeezus’ debuts at No. 1. But J. Cole wasn’t far behind.

The new father sold 327, 000 copies of ‘Yeezus’, according toNielsen SoundScan. It marks the third-largest sales week of the year behindJustin Timberlake’s ‘The 20/20 Experience’ (968,000) and Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ (339,000).

Despite his No. 1 debut, sales of ‘Yeezus’ are less than industry experts had initially predicted. After its first day on sale, the album was expected to do as much as 400,000. However, J. Cole performed above expectations as his sophomore set ‘Born Sinner’ enters at No. 2 with 297,000. He surpassed his 2011 debut ‘Cole World: The Sideline Story’, which entered at No. 1 with 218,000.

J.Cole surprised industry heads when he moved his album release date forward to compete directly with Kanye West. The Roc Nation rapper also said “Kanye West is one of the greatest artists of our generation. Which is exactly why I’m moving my release date up. 

I worked too hard to come a week later after Kanye West drops an amazing album. It’d be like, ‘Oh and J. Cole dropped too, a week later.’ Nah. I’m going to go see him on that date. He’s the greatest. So it’s like, I’m a competitor by nature so it was instant, it wasn’t even a thought.“

J.Cole definitely put up a good fight, selling just twenty thousand copies less than Kanye. This is the second time Kanye is going head-to-head with a rapper on album sales and coming out tops. In 2007, Kanye and 50 Cent released ‘Graduation’ and ‘Curtis’ the same day. ‘Graduation’ went on to sell 957K in its first week while 50 Cent moved an impressive  691K units but that was only good enough for second place.