J Cole’s first week sales for ‘The Fall-Off’ album revealed
J Cole has debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with his new album The Fall-Off.
The 24-song project was released on February 6th and served as the North Carolina rapper’s first LP in five years.
For the week dating February 21st, The Fall-Off opened with an impressive 280,000 units.
Of that figure, 166,500 are SEA units (169.5 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs), 113,000 pure album sales, and 500 TEA units.
Around 71% of the week’s sales were vinyl purchases; it was the first time Cole had released vinyl copies alongside the digital and streaming release.
In comparison, his last album, 2021’s The Off-Season, debuted at number one with very similar numbers, totalling 282,000 units in its first week.
The Fall-Off marks Cole’s seventh number one album on the chart. All of his albums have topped the chart, including Cole World: The Sideline Story, Born Sinner, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, 4 Your Eyez Only, KOD, and The Off-Season.
Cole recorded The Fall-Off with the idea that it would be the last album of his career.
Speaking on the decision, he said, “For the past 10 years, this album has been hand crafted with one intention: a personal challenge to myself to create my best work. To do on my last what I was unable to do on my first.”
He continued, “I had no way of knowing how much time, focus and energy it would eventually take to achieve this, but despite countless challenges along the way, I knew in my heart I would one day get to the finish line. I owed it first and foremost to myself. And secondly, I owed it to hip-hop.”