Drake’s Certified Lover Boy debuts at No.1 with best first-week sales of 2021
The album moved 613,000 units in seven days, nearly twice that of Kanye West’s Donda
Drake's sixth studio album Certified Lover Boy has secured the best first week sales of 2021 with 613,000 units sold, Billboard reports. It's Drake's 10th No. 1 album and the biggest album debut since Taylor Swift's folklore bowed with 846,000 units in August 2020.
The debut of Certified Lover Boy bumped the previous No. 1 album, Donda by Kanye West, down one spot to No. 2. Donda moved 309,000 equivalent album units in its first week, at that point the biggest debut of 2021. While it appears that Drake nearly doubled Donda's debut, it's worth pointing out that Kanye West released his album on a Sunday, giving it fewer eligible days for its first-week sales.
Still, the launch of Certified Lover Boy will likely do nothing to calm the feud between Drake and Kanye West. The two rappers began bickering in public after Drake's verse on Trippie Redd's "Betrayal" contained shots at West and Pusha-T. West responded with Instagram posts that promised to end Drake's career and published his home address in Toronto. Later, Drake leaked a Kanye West song called "Life of the Party" featuring Andre 3000 in which Kanye directly addressed the beef — 3000 would later distance himself from the conflict and the song's release.