NF’s ‘Hope’ Springs to No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart
Written by djfrosty on April 20, 2023
NF reasserts his rule on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as his newest album, Hope, starts at the summit of the chart dated April 22. The set begins with 123,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 13, according to Luminate.
With Hope, the rapper achieves his third No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. His first two entries, 2017’s Perception and 2019’s The Search, both debuted at No. 1 and held the rank for one week, while 2021’s Clouds (The Mixtape), entered and peaked at No. 2.
In addition to its Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums coronation, Hope likewise opens at No. 1 on the Top Rap Albums chart and at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart.
Eighty-one thousand units of Hope’s debut sum come from traditional album sales, bolstered by the album’s availability in an autographed CD edition in his webstore, a Target-exclusive CD with a poster packaged inside, four deluxe CD/merch boxed sets, and a both a white vinyl and a standard black vinyl edition. The figure makes Hope the top-selling album of the week across all genres and debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.
Of the outstanding balance, 42,000 units derive from the streaming sector, equal to 56.8 million official on-demand streams of Hope’s songs. The remaining 1,000 units are from track-equivalent units. (One unit equals the following levels of consumption: one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
As Hope arrives, five of the album’s tracks debut on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. “Careful,” with Cordae, enters the highest, at No. 29, followed by “Pandemonium” (No. 41), “Mama” (No. 46), “Suffice” (No. 47), “Bullet” (No. 48). Plus, two previous Hope releases return to the 50-position list: The title track re-enters at No. 33 after having reached a prior No. 16 peak, while “Motto” comes back at No. 40 after a No. 29 best.
A huge week for NF’s Hope album and its songs prompt the rapper’s re-entry at No. 3 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart, which measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption — album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming — to provide a weekly multidimensional ranking of artist popularity. By earning the bronze medal on this week’s recap, NF earns his highest Artist 100 rank since he claimed a week at No. 1 in August 2019.