Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is one of the most successful albums in all of hip-hop (and of music overall), and the numbers prove it. In fact, the 2012 album has just made history: Chart Data notes the album has now spent 400 weeks on the Billboard 200, which makes it the only hip-hop studio album to do so.
That, of course, makes the release the hip-hop studio album with the most time spent on the chart, ahead of Eminem’s The Eminem Show (383 weeks) and Drake’s Take Care (382). Those two albums are also both currently on the chart.
.@kendricklamar‘s ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ has now spent 400 weeks on the Billboard 200. It’s the longest charting hip-hop studio album in history.
— chart data (@chartdata) June 29, 2020
However, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City isn’t the longest-charting hip-hop album overall on the Billboard 200. Eminem’s 2005 compilation album, Curtain Call: The Hits, has spent 494 weeks on the chart. That’s good for sixth all time among all releases, behind Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon (950 weeks), Bob Marley And The Wailers’ Legend (632), Journey’s Journey’s Greatest Hits (622), Metallica’s Metallica (578), and Guns N’ Roses’ Greatest Hits (499). Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City comes in at 16th on the all-time, all-genre list.
Interestingly, despite Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City‘s extended run on the chart, it never actually topped it. On the chart dated November 10, 2012, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City debuted at No. 2 and was kept out of the top spot by Taylor Swift’s Red, which also debuted that week. Lamar would later guest on a remix of Swift’s 2015 single “Bad Blood.”