Lil Baby’s ‘WHAM’ Makes It Big With No. 1 Debut on Billboard 200
Lil Baby collects his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, all tallied consecutively, as WHAM opens atop the chart dated Jan. 18. The set earned 140,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 9, according to Luminate. The rapper previously topped the list with his last three releases: It’s Only Me (2022), The Voice of the Heroes (with Lil Durk, 2021) and My Turn (2020).
In total, WHAM marks Lil Baby’s seventh top 10 on the Billboard 200, stretching back to 2019’s Harder Than Ever (No. 3 peak).
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WHAM’s Friday (Jan. 3) release was announced by Lil Baby in late December.
Also in the top 10: Bad Bunny’s DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS debuts at No. 2, securing the superstar his seventh top 10-charting set. Bunny’s album was released on an off-cycle Sunday (Jan. 5) and, thus, it arrives on the chart with only five days of activity (as the chart’s tracking week runs Friday through Thursday). The album’s release date was announced on Dec. 25.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Jan. 18, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Jan. 14). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
Of WHAM’s 140,000 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 90,000 (equaling 119.77 million on-demand official streams of the streaming version of the album’s songs; the set debuts at No. 3 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), album sales comprise 50,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
WHAM was available to purchase as a 15-song standard digital download album and a standard CD (the latter exclusively sold via the artist’s official webstore). On Jan. 7, an extended edition of WHAM — with four additional songs — was released exclusively via Lil Baby’s label webstore for purchase. The extended edition was later issued widely through streaming services and digital retailers on Friday (Jan. 10). Both digital versions of the album were discounted to $4.99 in the webstores of the artist and his label (Motown), along with in the iTunes Store.
The standard version of WHAM features guest turns from 21 Savage, Future, GloRilla, Rylo Rodriguez, Travis Scott, Young Thug and Rod Wave.
Bad Bunny’s DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS starts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 122,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 113,500 (equaling 152.16 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 17 songs; it debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 8,000 and TEA units comprise 500. The album was only available as a standard 17-song set via streaming services and to purchase as a digital download (also discounted to $4.99 in Bad Bunny’s official webstore and the iTunes Store).
DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS was preceded by a pair of entries from the album on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart: “EL CLúB” and “PIToRRO DE COCO.”
Three former No. 1s follow on the Billboard 200: SZA’s SOS falls 1-3 on the (113,000 equivalent album units earned; down 13%), Kendrick Lamar’s GNX moves 2-4 (67,000; down 4%) and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet slips 3-5 (51,000; down 9%).
The Wicked film soundtrack dips 4-6 (45,000 equivalent album units; down 7%); Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft falls 5-7 (43,000; down 5%); Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time is a non-mover at No. 8 (40,000; down 1%); Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us is steady at No. 9 (38,000; down 5%); and Tyler, The Creator’s former leader CHROMAKOPIA is stationary at No. 10 (37,000; down 3%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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