Nicki Minaj has scored another record and career milestone now that her fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2, has officially debuted at the top of Billboard‘s 200 Albums chart.
On Sunday (December 17), the publication revealed its official album ranking for the week ending December 14, reporting that Nicki’s latest offering closed out its first week with 228,000 equivalent album units in the U.S.
This makes Pink Friday 2 the Queens rapper’s third No. 1 album, the most earned by any female rapper. The project’s first week numbers also mark the highest album equivalent units sold for a Hip Hop/R&B album by a woman in 2023, and the most sold by any female rapper in the 2020s.
With 25,000 vinyl copies sold, Pink Friday 2 also holds the distinction of most vinyl albums sold by a woman rapper since data analytics firm Luminate began tracking these figures in 1991.
After spending the last few weeks very vocal and active on social media, Nicki reacted to the news of her chart-topping first week with a very simple tweet comprising the number “228K #Barbz” accompanied by two emojis.
The list of “firsts” and records broken by Nicki Minaj with this project don’t stop there.
In addition to breaking a tie with Foxy Brown, who notched two No. 1 albums in her career, Nicki’s third No. 1 now makes her the first female rapper to top the Billboard 200 in two different decades.
This list of accolades reported by the venerated music publication comes just days after the head Barb called the publication out for their seemingly arbitrary enforcement of rules regarding a fan contest for her new album.
Taking to Twitter on Thursday (December 14), the head Barb launched into a multi-tweet tirade about the music magazine. According to Minaj, Billboard allegedly threatened to “take sales away” from her for asking her fanbase for proof that they’d purchased her new album as part of a promotional effort.