LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rapper Kendrick Lamar scored the best-selling debut album of the year on Monday as his latest album, “Damn.”, sold more than 600,000 copies, eclipsing Drake’s “More Life.” “Damn.”, the Grammy-winning Lamar’s third album to top the Billboard 200 chart, sold 603,000 copies in total and garnered 340 million streams, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. The Billboard 200 album chart counts units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album). Lamar’s “Damn.” topped Canadian rapper Drake’s “More Life,” which entered the Billboard 200 chart in March with 505,000 album units sold in its first week. At No. 2 this week is singer-songwriter John Mayer’s latest album, “Search For Everything,” which sold 132,000 copies, while Drake’s “More Life” slipped one spot to No. 3 with 87,000 copies sold. The soundtrack to Universal Pictures’ blockbuster action film “Fate of the Furious” was the only other new entry in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart this week, entering at No. 10 with 37,000 copies sold. On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online single sales, the dance track “Stay” by electro-pop DJ Zedd and singer Alessia Cara jumped from No. 10 to No. 1 with 91,000 copies sold. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
