Despite the leaks and bootlegging of Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” the album surprised many by selling 423, 000 copies Tuesday, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
With sales at that level, Lil Wayne’s new album is slated to debut atop the charts next week and will become 2008's top seller besting highly anticipated albums from Janet Jackson, Usher, and Mariah Carey. In contrast, “Tha Carter III” may come close to last year’s first week record breaker Kanye West who sold 957,000 copies of his third studio album “Graduation.”
Though Lil Wayne has been on the rap scene for years, "Tha Carter III," released Tuesday, was expected to be the album that catapults the critically acclaimed rapper into pop superstardom. Ubiquitous on mixtapes and a frequent collaborator, he has owned the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart for the past few weeks with his song "Lollipop," and "Tha Carter III" is among this year's most anticipated CDs.
His last two albums, "Tha Carter" and "Tha Carter II," sold 1.1 million and 1.4 million copies, respectively.
The release date for "Tha Carter III" was pushed back several times because the album was frequently leaked and bootlegged.
Elsewhere on the charts, Plies' sophomore album "Definition of Real" and N.E.R.D.'s "Seeing Sounds" are also predicted to make top 10 debuts next week.
i heard some of the cd it's pretty good buttarum did my boy Jay Z kill tha Mr.Carter with only one verse...this answers who was the better of the 2 Carters...Lil Weezy is good but he has quite reached that Jz,Nas status
jlp
6/14/2008 10:30:11 AM
This is for jezus lamonte STOP HATEN!!!!!!!!
jEZUS LAMONTE
6/14/2008 2:00:16 AM
he's a sellout rapper, rapping for the money not for the emotion.
carney
6/12/2008 10:12:04 PM
i love this fella especially his somg lollipop
lol
im lisytening to it now
ilh
xxx
M
6/12/2008 7:16:02 PM
whoa, how did that happen? Platnium in one week? jeez
Despite the leaks and bootlegging of Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” the album surprised many by selling 423, 000 copies Tuesday, according to Nielsen Soundscan. 
