With the greatest hip-hop sales week of 2024, Eminem’s most recent album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), has topped the Billboard 200.
After an uninterrupted 12-week run at No. 1, Em’s 12th album eventually dethroned Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, debuting atop the chart with 281,000 equivalent album-units, according to Billboard.
With first-week sales surpassing Future and Metro Boomin’s previous record of 251,000 units sold with We Don’t Trust You, The Death of Slim Shady becomes the biggest rap launch of 2024.
With 114,000 sales, Eminem’s most recent release was the second biggest digital debut of the year, only surpassed by Swift’s 274,000. Physical copies of The Death of Slim Shady won’t be available until September 13.
The album came in squarely in the middle of the initial estimate, which put its debut week sales between 270,000 and 290,000 album-equivalent units.
Em’s eleventh No. 1 album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), places him on par with Barbra Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, and Kanye West. The Beatles (19), JAY-Z (also 14), Drake (13), and Swift (14), are the only artists with more.
Additionally, the album’s first week of sales exceeded both the release weeks of Slim Shady’s previous albums, Music to be Murdered By (2020) and Revival (2017, 267,000).
The Death of Slim Shady has courted controversy since its July 12 release, following Eminem’s mockery of conservative pundit Candace Owens on “Lucifer.”
He rapped on the Dr. Dre-produced song, “And Candace O, I ain’t mad at her / I ain’t gon’ throw the fact bitch forgot she was Black back at her / Laugh at her like them crackers she’s backin’ after her back is turned / In a cute MAGA hat with her brand-new White Lives Matter shirt.”
“Or say this MAGA dirtbag in a skirt / Just opened the biggest can of worms on the planet Earth / Call her Grand Wizard, Klandace Grand Dragon or / Like the national anthem, I won’t stand for the tramp / But I can’t diss her because my plans are to get in her pants and I’ll blow my chance if I answer back to her,” he went on. to continue.
In a lengthy tirade on her YouTube channel, Owens addressed Eminem and claimed that he was a secret gay man.
“Let me start by saying that Eminem is unquestionably gay. She made reference to his 2002 smash song, saying, “It’s very sad that Eminem cleaned out his closet but never came out of his closet.”
“It would have meant something if he was at his prime,” Owens continued. He is nearing the conclusion of his career, not the pinnacle of it. He should have given up on his career 15 years ago or so, yet he continues.
