Nicki Minaj (‘Pink Friday 2’) makes history for female rappers on Billboard 200 chart

Nicki Minaj made hip-hop history with the release of “Pink Friday 2.” She debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200 albums chart and achieved something unprecedented for women in rap. Read all about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.

This is the third album Minaj has launched in the top spot, making her the first female rap artist ever to achieve a trio of chart-toppers. She previously led the chart with “Pink Friday” in 2011 and “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” in 2012. “Pink Friday 2” achieved 228,000 equivalent album units based on its combined album sales, individual track sales and online streams. That’s the most for any female rap album in the 2020s so far, and it achieved more streams in a single week than Minaj has ever had before in her career.

Following “Pink Friday 2” at number-two is Taylor Swift‘s “1989 (Taylor’s Version).” Then comes Drake‘s “For All the Dogs” at number-three, the debut of Tate McRae‘s “Think Later” at number-four and Michael Buble‘s “Christmas” holding steady at number-five.

In our weekly predictions contest, most Gold Derby game players correctly bet that “Pink Friday 2” would take the top spot. But we underestimated its strength; most of us thought it would achieve 100,000 to 149,999 album units instead of 200,000 to 249,999. Our odds were right, though, that “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” would stay put in second place and that “For All the Dogs” would come in third. “Think Later” was a bit of a surprise in the number-four spot; fewer than a dozen people anticipated that. And “Christmas” wasn’t in our predictions center this week, but two users did manage to correctly predict “None of These” would take number-five.

In all, 12 users scored four out of six correct predictions this week. Of those, user Nils Sjoberg took first place by scoring the most points; they placed their super bet on “None of These” at number-five at 82/1 odds, resulting in a huge windfall. How did you do betting on this week’s chart results?

Be sure to make your predictions so that artists can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next tracking week begins every Friday. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our music forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.