Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, 1965, in an effort by the magazine to further expand into the field of rhythm and blues music.^[1] It then went through several name changes, being known as Soul LPs in the 1970s and Top Black Albums in the 1980s, before returning to the R&B identification in 1990 and affixing a hip hop designation in 1999 to reflect the latter's growing sales and relationship to R&B during the decade.

From 1965 through 2009, the chart was compiled based on reported sales at a core panel of stores with a "higher-than-average volume" of R&B and/or hip-hop album sales to monitor buying trends of the African-American community. This panel included more independent and smaller chain stores compared to the high percentage of mass merchants that account for overall album sales.^[2] The core panel of stores continued to be monitored with the advent of SoundScan technology in the early 1990s but was dissolved at the end of 2009 when the methodology of the chart changed to "recap overall album sales of current R&B/hip-hop titles."^[3]

Chart name history

The chart debuted on January 30, 1965, as the Hot R&B LP's.^[4] On August 23, 1969, Billboard renamed both singles and albums contingents of the R&B charts as Soul charts;^[5] the albums chart was first called Best Selling Soul LP's and then from July 14, 1973, simply Soul LP's.^[a] On June 26, 1982, the singles and album charts were renamed again as Black Singles and Black LPs respectively.^[6] With Billboard's overhaul of its charts on October 20, 1984,^[7] the chart became Top Black Albums. On October 27, 1990, the charts returned to the R&B designation (Top R&B Albums, Hot R&B Singles). On December 11, 1999, Billboard renamed them again as Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, in an effort to recognize the growing sales of hip hop music and the genre's influential relationship to contemporary R&B.^[8]

Achievements

Album with the most weeks in the top ten^[9]

Weeks	Album	Artist
100	My Turn	Lil Baby
89	Hollywood's Bleeding	Post Malone
77	Stoney
	beerbongs & bentleys
76	Thriller	Michael Jackson
70	Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon	Pop Smoke
64	Whitney Houston	Whitney Houston
63	The E.N.D.	Black Eyed Peas
61	After Hours	The Weeknd
59	The Heist	Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Albums with the most weeks on the chart^[10]

Weeks	Album	Artist
362	Take Care	Drake
342	Curtain Call: The Hits	Eminem
327	Greatest Hits	Tupac Shakur
319	2014 Forest Hills Drive	J. Cole
299	Good Kid, M.A.A.D City	Kendrick Lamar
266	Goodbye & Good Riddance	Juice Wrld
263	DAMN.	Kendrick Lamar
259	beerbongs & bentleys	Post Malone

Artists with the most number-one albums

Artist	No. of #1 albums	Source
The Temptations	19	[11]
Drake	15
Future
Jay-Z	14
Kanye West	12
R. Kelly

Top Rap Albums

Billboard began the Top Rap Albums chart on the weekend of June 26, 2004,^[12] although its first publication on print commenced on the week of November 20, 2004.^[13] Pop Smoke's posthumous debut, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon holds the record of most weeks at number one on the chart with twenty non-consecutive weeks.^[14]

Albums with the most weeks at number one

Weeks	Album	Artist	Source
20	Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon	Pop Smoke	[15][14]
19	Recovery	Eminem	[15]
18	Heroes & Villains	Metro Boomin	[16]
16	Take Care	Drake	[17]
14	The Marshall Mathers LP 2	Eminem
13	Paper Trail	T.I.
	The Heist	Macklemore & Ryan Lewis	[18]
	Certified Lover Boy	Drake
11	DAMN.	Kendrick Lamar	[19]
	For All the Dogs	Drake	[20]

Artists with the most number-one albums

No. of albums	Artist	Source
16	Future	[21]
14	Drake	[22]
10	Kanye West
8	The Game	[23]
7	Eminem	[24][25]
	Jay-Z	[26]

Notes

1. The apostrophe in "LP's" was dropped beginning on August 10, 1974.

References

1. "Billboard's R&B Section". Billboard. Vol. 77, no. 5. January 30, 1965. p. 14. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
2. "New Store Panel Updates R&B Charts". Billboard. Vol. 116, no. 49. December 4, 2004. p. 16. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
3. Trust, Gary (November 17, 2009). "Billboard 200 Undergoes Makeover". Billboard. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
4. "Billboard's R&B Section". Billboard. Vol. 77, no. 5. January 30, 1965. p. 14. Archived from the original on April 16, 2023. Retrieved July 5, 2024 – via Google Books.
5. "R&B Now Soul". Billboard. Vol. 81, no. 34. August 23, 1969. p. 3. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Retrieved July 5, 2024 – via Google Books.
6. George, Nelson (June 26, 1982). "Black Music Charts: What's in a Name?". Billboard. Vol. 94, no. 25. pp. 10, 43. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Retrieved July 5, 2024 – via Google Books.
7. "The New Billboard". Billboard. Vol. 96, no. 42. October 20, 1984. pp. 1, 73. Archived from the original on April 22, 2023. Retrieved July 5, 2024 – via Google Books.
8. "Billboard R&B Charts Get Updated Names". Billboard. December 11, 1999. p. 8. Retrieved May 26, 2020 – via Google Books.
9. Anderson, Trevor (2022-09-29). "Lil Baby's My Turn Hits 100 Weeks in Top 10 of Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart". Billboard. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
10. Anderson, Trevor (15 March 2019). "Drake's Take Care Breaks Record for Most Weeks on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart". Billboard. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
11. "Ye & Ty Dolla $ign's Vultures 2 Debuts at No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart". Billboard. 14 August 2024.
12. "Top Rap Albums - Week of June 26, 2004". Billboard. 2013-01-02. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
13. Mayfield, Geoff (November 20, 2004). "Over the Counter". Billboard. Vol. 116, no. 47. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 81.
14. Anderson, Trevor (2020-11-20). "Pop Smoke's Shoot for the Stars Has Most Weeks at No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Since 2012". Billboard. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
15. Hamilton, Xavier (Mar 24, 2021). "Pop Smoke's Debut Album Breaks Eminem's Record for Most Weeks at No. 1 on Top Rap Albums Billboard Chart". Complex. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
16. "Metro Boomin Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
17. Pope, A. (2016). Musical artists capitalizing on hybrid identities: A case study of drake the "Authentic" "Black" "Canadian" "Rapper". Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology, 9(1), 3.
18. Gray, Geordie (2021-03-25). "Pop Smoke beats Eminem for most weeks spent a #1 on the hip-hop chart". Tone Deaf. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
19. Bohnett, M. (2019). Centers and Peripheries in the Expression and Enactment of Religion, Sociopolitical Soundscapes, and the Reception of Kendrick Lamar's DAMN.
20. "Drake | Biography, Music & News". Billboard. Retrieved 2024-11-10.
21. "Future | Biography, Music & News". Billboard. Retrieved 2024-11-10.
22. "Drake Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
23. "The Game Chart History". Billboard. Archived from the original on 2023-10-16. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
24. "Eminem Scores Historic 10th No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart with Music to Be Murdered By". Billboard. 26 January 2020. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
25. "Eminem Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
26. "Jay-Z Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 13 February 2020.

Works cited

• Whitburn, Joel (2000). Top R&B Albums: 1965–1998. Record Research. ISBN 978-0-89820-134-5

External links

• Yearly Billboard Top 5 R&B Hip-Hop Albums 1966-2006