There's big expectations placed on artists shoulders to do big 1st week numbers. A lot of that pressure seems to come from the artists themselves.Young Money's Mack Maine says Nicki Minaj is stressing out over how well her debut will do. She said recently that if 'Pink Friday' doesn't do well, it could spell the end for female rappers getting a major label deal.
Mack recently sat down with Vibe to talk about Nicki's mindset, and why he feels she shouldn't sweat it so much.
“She was worrying about first week. She was like, ‘Drake sold [463,000]. What you think I’ma sell? As if she gon' sell less,” recalls Maine. "I explained to her, ‘You know a lot of the press and the media really got it brainwashed with first week sales.’ Bieber went on to sell 2 million and Bieber might have only sold 17,000 the first week. Juvenile sold like 30,000 his first week of 400 Degreez and went on to sell 6 million.”
Mack makes a valid point there. Very few albums are keeping the same momentum going after a big 1st week. For every cd like Eminem's 'Recovery' that continued to do great numbers weeks after its release, there are countless projects that fall off the face of the map after the debut week.
Is this a result or weak overall albums? Or labels pushing the panic button too soon and bailing on projects prematurely?
Mack spoke about that as well.
“I don’t know what happened to working the record and making sure that the artist reaches a certain point. I rather the end number be higher than the beginning,” says Maine. “These days, it’s all about: Let me do 500,000, a million the first week. Don’t get caught up in what Wayne did. You don’t want your pinnacle to be your first-week sales. Then everything’s downhill from there and then what? I don’t care if you sell 10 the first week and you go on to sell 5 million—we did better than the person that sold 300 the first week.”
Real talk right there.
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