Chance The Rapper has become the first artist in the history of the Billboard 200 album chart to place with a streaming-exclusive release. Coloring Book, which serves as the third mixtape from the Chicago emcee, received 57.3 million streams in its first week of release online. The record was only available through Apple Music during this time, and it could only be accessed as a stream. Thanks to the RIAA’s 2015 ruling that 15,000 song streams were the equivalent to one album sale, Chance’s Coloring Book hit the Billboard 200 this week at number 8 by accruing enough streams to equal roughly 38,000 album sales.
Chance’s Coloring Book will remain exclusive to Apple Music until May 27. It’s likely the album will be made available for download after that date, but there are currently no plans to sell the album, or at least none that have been made public as of yet.
Kanye West, who collaborated with Chance on Coloring Book, recently made headlines when his record, The Life Of Pablo, charted on the Billboard 200 with the majority of its “sales” stemming from streams. The album is currently in its seventh week on the list, sitting pretty at No. 20, and in the latest tracking week, 99.93 percent of its units (21,000) were generated by streams. The other .07 percent were album sales. The set sold a handful of copies in the latest tracking frame, and hasn’t sold more than 1,000 copies in a week since its second chart week.
What has not been revealed in all of this is just how much money Chance The Rapper will see from the success of Coloring Book. Considering that the album is currently considered an Apple Music exclusive it’s likely Chance was paid for such placement long before the record was made available to fans. Whether or not he will also receive everything he’s owed from those 57 million streams is unknown, but it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Apple kept the bulk of the initial money received. We’ll post more information about the album and what it says about the way we consume music as soon as more details are made available.
