Travis Scott has been the highlight of the hip-hop world this week, with his latest album, Utopia, raking in an abundance of first-week sales. In recent news, the album is set to gross about 350 million streams, linking to a quantity of 245,000-275,000 SEA (streaming equivalent albums). Nonetheless, those numbers don’t correspond to album sales. Reportedly, the project is predicted to reach over 200,000 album sales. Scott’s promotion for Utopia has received plenty of success, especially from his website, which sells physical albums, merch, and even five cover arts from the project.
Billboard’s May update allows merch bundles for chart positions, limiting artists to two “fan bundles” with an album and merch. Seemingly, Utopia may surpass 500K sales, potentially beating Astroworld’s 2018 debut of 538K units. Astroworld soared atop the Billboard 200, claiming the second-highest sales of the year, trailing Drake’s Scorpion with 732,000 units. Awaiting Utopia’s official first-week sales, early streaming stats are already impressive. Chart Data reveals it secured a record-breaking 128 million debut-day Spotify streams, ranking as 2023’s largest streaming hip-hop project.
As we previously covered, Travis Scott’s ‘Utopia’ debut at the Pyramids of Giza was canceled days before its unveiling. The show was halted due to the Egyptian Syndicate’s cultural concerns. Earlier this month, the Syndicate issued a statement “Since the General Syndicate is part of the fabric of this beloved country it is keen on its stability and refuses to tamper with societal values and Egyptian and Arab customs.” “Based on research and documented information about strange rituals at Travis’s concerts that are inconsistent with our authentic societal values and traditions, the Board of Directors has decided to cancel the license issued to hold this type of concert that contradicts the cultural identity of the Egyptian people.