The Weeknd 'After Hours' First Week Sales

UPDATE: As expected, The Weeknd debuts at #1 with a whopping 445,464 copies of After Hours sold first week. 271,877 copies come from pure sales.

Kendrick Lamar Shakes Up The Super Bowl With Bold Drake Diss And Surprise Guests

Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl 59 halftime performance was nothing short of legendary, leaving fans buzzing with surprise cameos and bold moments that took his long-running feud with Drake to new heights. Kicking off with an unreleased song snippet and followed by “Squabble Up” from his latest album GNX, Kendrick immediately set the tone for a game-changing performance. Fans eagerly waited to see if Kendrick would play his diss track Not Like Us, especially with Drake's ongoing lawsuit against him and his label for defamation and harassment. Lamar's performance included an unexpected appearance by SZA and a quirky cameo from Serena Williams, along with Samuel L. Jackson’s comedic interruptions, all building the suspense around the Drake drama. In the middle of his performance, Kendrick turned up the heat, looking straight into the camera and directly addressing Drake with his famous lyrics, “I heard you like them young," as fans held their breath. Despite the tension, Kendrick censored himself when it came time to call Drake a "certified lover boy" and avoided saying “pedophile,” which had been widely speculated. Social media lit up with mixed reactions, with some fans mocking the performance as a "mid mashup" and others noting the intense hostility toward Drake. With the hashtag #KendrickBowl trending, it’s clear that Kendrick’s performance was a cultural moment that pushed boundaries—but has he gone too far, or is this just another chapter in hip-hop history? Only time will tell, and Drake has yet to respond.

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The Weeknd released his new album After Hours on Friday featuring no guest appearances. As we have noted before, he’s the first major artist to release a project in the current state of the Coronavirus pandemic.

So how well can he still do given the general mood of the public? After Hours is projected to move over 400k copies in the first week, reports HDD. This will be around the same as his second album Beauty Behind The Madness which did 412k in 2015 and slightly more than his last one, Starboy which moved 348k copies in the first week.

After Hours is set to sell around 200k pure copies made of mostly D2C sales which come along with a ticket bundle. The album did over 100 million global streams and is currently holding 14 out of the top 15 songs on Apple Music (U.S.).

‘In Your Eyes’ will serve as the next official single off the album, going for Pop and Rhythmic radio adds on March 24.