J. Cole continues to prove he’s a major force not just in rap, but in all of music with the first week figures for his latest album. 4 Your Eyez Only may have only had one week of promotion but it was all Cole needed apparently, as the album earned the top slot of the Billboard 200 chart for the week ending December 15. The project pushed a whopping 492,000 equivalent units, earning the Dreamville rapper his fourth no. 1 album, per a report by Billboard.
What’s more impressive is those numbers leave Cole third only to Drake’s Views and Beyonce’s Lemonade, who earned 852,000 and 485,000 respectively, for album launch figures. Cole would up with 363,000 in traditional album sales, which is again a solid feat. 4 Your Eyez Only wound up with 118,000 in streaming equivalents, which translates to 51.7 million streams according to the metrics. The numbers leave him second only to Drake’s Views, which notched 163,000 streaming equivalents in its first week.
Since 2011, all of the North Carolina native’s projects have earned a top slot on the charts, beginning with Cole World: The Sideline Story with 217,000 copies sold. To date, his previous three releases have all gone platinum with his previous album, 2014 Forest Hills Drive, earning four-times platinum status from the RIAA. He joins Drake and DMX as the only rappers to have their first four studio projects land at no. 1.
