Kanye West’s ‘The Life Of Pablo’ Number One On Billboard 200 Chart

Kanye West’s latest album, The Life of Pablo, has brought millions of subscribers to the Tidal streaming service. Kanye released his seventh studio album exclusively on Jay-Z’s music service when the album first dropped, on February 13, 2016. According to Tidal, The Life of Pablo was streamed over 250 million times within the first 10 days of the album’s release. In addition to that, EW reports that the album has now officially hit the number one spot on the Billboard 200.

Nielsen Music reports that the Kanye West project pulled in 94,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 7. 28,000 of that total were pure album sales, while the rest was streaming equivalents. Most of The Life of Pablo‘s units were streaming equivalent albums, 70 percent to be exact, which makes the album the first of its kind to be on the Billboard 200.

Tidal subscribers more than doubled to 3 million users after The Life of Pablo was released. And while Kanye West had claimed the album would be a Tidal exclusive, the album became available on other streaming services on April 1. West also made the album available for purchase on his official website, after Kanye had been making some updates to a majority of the tracklist. In the coming months, the rapper will apparently continue making changes to songs on the album.

“Fixing Wolves 2day… Worked on it for 3 weeks. Life Of Pablo is a living breathing changing creative expression,” Kanye West tweeted last month, adding the hashtag #contemporaryart. On March 30, 12 tracks on the album received a few more touches, with all of it being available on Tidal, as well as alternate mixes and vocals additions.

On the Charts: Despite low sales, Kanye West's 'The Life of Pablo' still reaches Number One https://t.co/XaZGvnJFpm

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) April 10, 2016

Each Kanye West album has debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and Pablo continues that winning streak for the Chicago producer-rapper.

“When I was sitting in the studio with Kirk, Kirk Franklin, and we’re just going through it, I said this is a gospel album, with a whole lot of cursing on it, but it’s still a gospel album,” Kanye West said in an interview on Big Boy Radio. “The gospel according to Ye. It’s not exactly what happened in the Bible, but it’s this story idea of Mary Magdalene becoming Mary.”

Kanye West is also planning to release another album, titled Turbo Grafx 16, sometime this summer. And it looks like the rapper is currently in the studio putting that project together. Born in 1977, the 38-year-old Kanye West was probably around 12-years-old when the TurboGrafx was first released.

Kanye West’s longtime barber as well as circle of trust member Ibn Jasper threw up an Instagram picture that featured Kid Cudi and frequent producer collaborators Plain Pat and Mike Dean, hard at work in the studio.

West is more than likely pulling some samples from Sufjan Stevens’ song “Death with Dignity.”

Turbo Grafix 16 is also going to be followed up by another album, according to the rapper, who let his fans know that he would be dropping three albums in a year. West did mention that he has already recorded 40 songs with Young Thug as well as 40 songs with Future. And that much material could produce 8 different albums.

Meanwhile, Kanye West recently touched on Rob Kardashian’s engagement to Blac Chyna while he was traveling through Los Angeles International Airport. When asked if he would be attending the wedding, he said he has yet to be invited… with a smile on his face. He may also have been trying to avoid specifically talking about Chyna.

“You know, Rob is my brother,” Kanye continued. “I love Rob. I just roll with it. I love Rob, that’s all I can say. I love Rob.”

[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Yeezy Season 3]