UPDATE 2 (December 14): HDD now has the projections a little lower at 530-540k.
UPDATE (December 12): The final projections are in and are even higher than originally thought. The album is now expected to sell 400k–425k copies in pure sales and 550k–575k with streams. Wow!
Previous story:
Now that the hype around J. Cole’s new album 4 Your Eyez Only is starting to settle down a little — well at least according to social media standards, a lot of fans and industry people are betting on the first week sales.
Early projections by HDD say that J. Cole’s album will sell between 400k-500k copies in the first week which will be more than enough to hit the number 1 spot on Billboard 200 next week. The project, which features production from Cole himself along with Vinylz, Childish Major, Cardiak, Elite and more (find full productions credits here), is sitting comfortably on top of the iTunes chart at the moment.
There’s been a little controversy as well. Boi-1da and Vinylz have accused producer Foreign Teck of stealing the beat for ‘Deja Vu’, which sounds a lot like Bryson Tiller’s hit ‘Exchange‘. This particular song is currently charting highest among all from 4 Eyez Only on iTunes.
Me and @Boi1da made that exchange beat first. It was stolen from us by a thief named @ForeignTeck . Cole song was recorded before exchange
— Vinylz (@Vinylz) December 9, 2016
Then go listen to Meek – U know and Deja Vu back to back. Ripped my drum pattern. Shit brazy lol no class
— Boi-1da (@Boi1da) December 9, 2016
Jermaine is yet to respond to this. We’d have to wait a week to find out how much exactly the album manages to sell in the end but one thing is clear, it will be one of the biggest releases of this year AND he will certainly go platinum with no features again.