As we pointed out before, this past Tuesday three new school rappers released for-sale albums. Machine Gun Kelly, Macklemore, and Odd Future duo Mellowhype. Tonight the first week projections are officially in for MGK and Macklemore.
Bad Boy/Interscope Texas-born, Cleveland-based rapper Machine Gun Kelly's major label debut, Lace Up, is on target for between 50-55k in first-week sales. Known as MGK and born Colson Baker, the rap prodigy gets his name from the rapid-fire delivery he developed as a teenager. He's been signed to P. Diddy's label since 2011 and also has a marketing partnership for HTC's Rezound Beats by Dre phone, with his "Invincible" track playing during the TV spot for the product. (HITS Daily Double)
The week's top debut is indie sleeper Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, a hip-hop duo from Seattle who had the #1 album on iTunes earlier this week with The Heist, which could do anywhere from 70-80k, according to our crack(ed?) retail pundits based on one-day sales. Ben Haggerty, who goes by the nom de rap Macklemore, has been popular in his hometown Seattle for the better part of a decade, releasing a series of acclaimed mixtapes after working at a juvenile detention facility as part of a "Gateways" program centered around rap. He teamed up with DJ/producer Lewis a couple of years ago on an EP, which attracted attention for the song, "Otherside," which described his addition to OxyContin and sampled from the Chili Peppers song of the same name. (HITS Daily Double)
What about Mellowhype? It's not expected for their 'Numbers' album to sell a substantial amount of records, so the sales have not been projected.
