Pop Smoke Becomes Fourth Rapper to Posthumously Debut Atop Billboard

The album earned over 250,000 equivalent album units in its first week.

Pop Smoke is now in rarefied air in the rap genre. On Sunday, his posthumous album Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon debuted atop the Billboard 200 albums chart. The honor made the Brooklyn MC the fourth rapper to debut atop the chart with a posthumous release.

Previously, South Florida rapper XXXTentacion’s Skins album debuted number one for the week of December 22, 2018. The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur each have three posthumous number-one releases in their catalogs.

Shoot for the Stars is followed by Hamilton: An American Musical. The album surged from number 14 to the second spot. The play debuted on the Disney+ streaming catalog on July 3. Shoot for the Stars debuted with 190,000 streaming units. That number gave the album the fourth-largest streaming week of 2020 behind the first and second week after the release of Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake and the debut of Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes.

In total, the album debuted with 251,000 equivalent album units was the sixth-biggest week of the year. The Weeknd’s After Hours debuted with 444,000 units, followed by BTS’ Map of the Soul with 422,000 units, Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake with 288,000 units, Eminem’s Music to Be Murdered By, and Lady Gaga’s Chromatica.

Last week, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they’d taken three adults and two juveniles into custody in connection with the February 19 home invasion that led to the shooting death of Pop Smoke.

Stream Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon on all major digital streaming platforms.