Drake seems poised to experience another setback in his rivalry with Kendrick Lamar, following the relatively underwhelming commercial performance of his new album $ome $exy $ongs 4 U.
This is Drake’s first full album release since his defeat in the rap battle with Kendrick last year. The album, a collaboration with PARTYNEXTDOOR, is projected to earn approximately 250,000 equivalent units in its first week, according to HITS Daily Double.
The album is expected to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, marking Drake’s 14th chart-topping album, tying him with JAY-Z and just five behind the record-holding Beatles. This will also be PARTYNEXTDOOR’s first number-one album.
However, this project would also rank as the fifth lowest-selling album of Drake’s career in terms of first-week sales, behind So Far Gone (73,000), Care Package (109,000), Honestly Nevermind (204,000), and Dark Lane Demo Tapes (223,000).
To make matters worse, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U will fall short of Kendrick’s post-beef album GNX, which debuted with 319,000 units last November.
Drake’s fans may argue that this is technically not his first solo album since the feud, and that the project has lacked the same promotional budget and marketing efforts as his previous releases, due to being distributed through OVO and Santa Anna rather than Universal Music Group, as pointed out by Audiomack’s Brian Zisook.
As a consolation, Drake is likely to take the number one spot on the Billboard 200 from Kendrick after GNX briefly regained the top spot earlier this week, thanks to a boost from streams after Kendrick’s Super Bowl halftime show and physical album sales.
Instead, GNX will compete with Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet (Deluxe) for the number two position, with an estimated 147,000 units.
US albums chart preview (via @HITSDD):
#1 @partynextdoor & @Drake 250K
#2 Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) 149K
#3 @kendricklamar 147K
#4 @SZA 93K
#5 Bad Bunny (@sanbenito) 67K
#6 @theweeknd 62K
#7 @ChappellRoan 50K
#8 @billieeilish 44K
#9 @MorganWallen 40k
#10 Kendrick…— chart data (@chartdata) February 18, 2025
Even with its relatively modest sales predictions, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U made a notable impact on streaming.
On Spotify, it garnered 56.6 million streams on its first day, making it the second-largest debut of the year so far, behind The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow.
On Apple Music, the album set a new record for the highest number of single-day streams for an R&B album.
$ome $exy $ongs 4 U also enabled Drake to temporarily surpass Kendrick in terms of the most single-day Spotify streams by a rapper this year, reaching 92.4 million.
In the album itself, Drake appears to reference his ongoing rivalry with Kendrick, as well as take a jab at his longtime adversary, Joe Budden.
