Chance The Rapper has created a unique space for himself.
The Chicago rapper released his third project named Coloring Book this past Friday to a positive response online. The mixtape, which features a star studded guest list of Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, Justin Bieber, Future and more, remains an iTunes/Apple Music exclusive till date. It has been heavily promoted with banners on the iTunes home page since its release.
Chance entered into a rare agreement with Apple to exclusively stream the album and let fans download it for free. Since free downloads are not counted towards album sales of course, fans wondered what the state will be in terms of Billboard and SoundScan. Well, the indie rapper is expected to become the first artist in history to chart on Billboard with purely streaming numbers as he’s projected to move a whopping 40-50k from streams equivalent albums according to HDD. So even though the album was offered for free, the streaming numbers are so high that that Coloring Book will be placed dominantly on the charts.
This figure will give Chance a guaranteed Top 10 finish on the Billboard 200 chart next week. This feat somewhat trumps his mentor Kanye’s who became the first artist to debut at #1 from predominantly streaming back in April with The Life of Pablo.