Drake Goes Platinum in Canada

So, is it me or is the tone in this reporter’s CNN blog a bit.. snarky? Yes, Canada’s population is a small percentage of that in the US, but the fact that a hip hop artist from Canada hitting platinum (100,000 units), hasn’t happened in about 20 years is reason enough to celebrate.  Despite the understandable freshman jitters and the naysayers (like DJ Whoo Kid – see the article below), the unofficial word is that Drake has reached near gold in the US, at just over  460,000 copies — in 1 week.  Not quite meeting the hopes of mentor Lil’ Wayne, who predicted that Drake would outsell Carter III (which went platinum in its first week), but simply amazing for a kid from Toronto — I’m just sayin’!!  Especially considering that his album got leaked a week before the official release date.  Some folks are already predicting that it won’t do as well as Eminem‘s new album, Recovery, which goes on sale today, but I guess we’ll just have to let the numbers speak for themselves….

From CNN.com:

Drake goes platinum…in Canada

Call it home-field advantage: Early reports out of Canada reveal that Drake’s debut album, “Thank Me Later,” has already gone platinum.

The Young Money/Cash Money signee – and arguably the most-hyped hip-hop artist in years – is dealing with lofty expectations for his first solo album since his astronomically successful mixtape, “So Far Gone,” more or less set his career in motion.

Drake was expected to move somewhere between 425,000 and 475,000 units in the first week and those estimates were on target: the artist almost went gold, selling 462,989 copies of “Thank Me Later” in the U.S.

Hip-hop DJ and radio personality DJ Whoo Kid, who wasn’t quite convinced that Drizzy would be the year’s largest release, also wasn’t far off with at least part of his prediction that a legend will rain on the parade of Toronto’s Golden Child. “Will Drake sell 500k the first week?” DJ Whoo Kid asked via Twitter before he laid out his guess that Drake would sell somewhere between 350,000-420,000 in his first week.

While it looks like Drake did better than Whoo Kid expected, it remains to be seen whether or not his prediction that Eminem will outsell Drake will come true. The DJ is banking on Em selling between 650,000 and 700,000 units of “Recovery,” which dropped June 22.

Either way, it seems that Drake’s musical hype has been matched with sales; guess he can “thank” the fans now.