Lil Wayne is returning to the charts in a big way.
The rap titan’s long-awaited album Tha Carter V is expected to debut at No. 1 on next week’s Billboard 200. According to HITS Daily Double, the album is on track to move 475-525,000 equivalent album units in its first week, of which 165-180,000 are traditional sales.
The combined 23 tracks on C5 earned 49.5 million streams in the first 24 hours on U.S. Spotify, marking the second largest debut in the history of the streaming platform behind Drake’s Scorpion (80.5 million). Tha Carter V has since surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify, according to Chart Data. Wayne also occupies 23 out of 25 of the top songs on Apple Music in the U.S.
Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter V' has now surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify.
— chart data (@chartdata) September 30, 2018
While the numbers are impressive given Wayne’s seven-year gap in the Carter series, they are still a far cry from 2011’s Tha Carter IV, which sold 964,000 copies in its first week (prior to the streaming era).
After much anticipation, Tha Carter V arrived Friday featuring appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, Snoop Dogg, and the late XXXTentacion.
Elsewhere on next week’s charts, look out for Logic, whose album YSIV is projected to do 90-110,000 copies (45-55k traditional) in its first week. Meanwhile, Kanye West is expected to release his album Yandhi sometime this weekend.