Kendrick Lamar fans waited five long years to receive his new album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. The project finally arrived earlier this month, and it’s safe to say that it was far from what fans expected from him. Similar to how To Pimp A Butterfly was a big change in direction from Good Kid M.A.A.D. City, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers was quite the shift from Damn. Nonetheless, Lamar’s fifth album has still received favorable reviews from critics, and now, he can add another No. 1 album to his resume as Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers topped the Billboard 200 charts.
For the Billboard 200 dated May 28, 2022, Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers debuted at No. 1 thanks to 295,000 album units sold. That number is comprised of 258,500 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 343.02 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs. Elsewhere, Mr. Morale also posted 35,000 pure album sales. Altogether, this feat gives Lamar the fourth consecutive and overall chart-topping album of his career.
Lamar’s fifth album put up the largest overall week in 2022, breaking a record set last week by Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti. Bad Bunny’s album still had the biggest streaming week of 2022 with Mr. Morale coming in at a not too distant second place. Mr. Morale also had the largest sales
week for a digital album in 2022 and the biggest overall week since Adele’s 30 posted 839,000 units back in November.
You can revisit our review of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers here.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via PgLang/TDE/Aftermath/Interscope. You can stream it here.