Lil Wayne again tops the Billboard 200 albums chart for his album "The Carter IV" after 2004 when he released his album "The Carter III" selling about 1 million copies only in US in its first week of release. This is his ninth studio album and first since being released from prison, released on August 29, 2011 The rapper grabbed the No. 1 spot this week for his album Tha Carter IV, selling 964,000 copies, according to Billboard. It's the second-biggest first-week sales for an album this year -- behind Lady Gaga's 1.1 million for Born This Way, but ahead of Jay-Z and Kanye West's 436,000 for Watch the Throne.
MORE: Lil Wayne is recovering slowly after an accident.
Wayne has another chart-topping album in last year's "I Am Not a Human Being." Take into account Gaga's first-week discount pricing, and Wayne's sales figures look even more impressive. According to Billboard, Gaga sold an estimated 440,000 downloads for 99 cents each, during a two-day sale by Amazon's MP3 store. The Carter IV's sales of almost a million copies came without such pricing.
On the download front, Wayne can also claim a milestone. Yes, Tha Carter IV's first-week digital sales of 362,000 trail Gaga's 662,000, the year's most. But sources told Billboard that Wayne's album set a new iTunes single-week sales record by a wide margin, moving around 345,000 copies. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that means Wayne dethroned Watch the Throne -- an album that was only available on iTunes for its four days of release. SoundScan does not share retailer-specific numbers.
The debut capped a solid month for hip-hop album sales. Right behind Tha Carter IV was West Coast rapper Game's The R.E.D. Album, which sold nearly 100,000 copies.
Lil has recently experienced an accident while skateboarding at St.Louis-area skateboard park on Sunday August 21 for a performance at the outdoor Verizon Amphitheatre. So No 1 position is certainly a good achievement after this drawback.