Now that the dust has settled from Friday and everyone has had the chance to listen to J. Cole‘s new album (if you haven’t by now, you really should), it’s been announced today that the rapper’s fifth album has broken Apple Music’s record for streams.
Never been one to follow conventions, J. Cole got fans the world over excited last week when he made the shock announcement that a new album would be out on Friday, dubbed KOD. He went on to reveal the meaning (or meanings) behind the name in tweet before the release.
KOD. 3 meanings.
Kids on Drugs
King Overdosed
Kill Our DemonsThe rest of the album I leave to your interpretation.
— J. Cole (@JColeNC) April 19, 2018
Having held two separate, exclusive (and might I add FREE) listening parties in New York and London with a ‘no devices policy’, those who were lucky enough to be in attendance couldn’t wait to hear what the North Carolina rapper had been working on in secret and those who were not were patiently waiting in the rafters to press play come Friday.
As reported, the album accumulated over 64.5 million US streams on Apple Music, surpassing the previous record holder, Drake’s Views, by nearly 1 million streams. Seven out of the their top 10 most streamed songs in 24-hours now come from KOD. It also set an unprecedented record on rival Spotify‘s platform but doesn’t compare in numbers as Apple’s growing dominance as the world’s largest music streaming market continues to increase.
36,656,086 streams.
0 guest features. @JColeNC’s #KOD now holds the record for most first day U.S. album streams. 👑 pic.twitter.com/Uak1moPkN4— Spotify USA (@SpotifyUSA) April 23, 2018
The streaming success of the album makes Cole likely to earn his fifth No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart when the results are announced later this week. Estimates suggest the album will sell between 350,000 and 400,000 equivalent album units. J.Cole could therefore beat Justin Timberlake as the artist with the fastest selling album of the year. You can’t be surprised at the outcome. Continued success for J. Cole
#Peace.Love.JCole
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