Cham‘s Ghetto Story, his major label debut album released on Atlantic Records has now sold 100,000 units in the U.S. according to information supplied to WMV by Billboard sales tracker Luminate. Of that amount 61,000 is in pure copies and 27 million on-demand streams.
The album released 17 years ago on August 15, 2006 featured 17 tracks, all produced by legendary dancehall producer Dave Kelly. It features Akon, Rihanna, Jimmy Cheese Trix, Tia Jean, and Magic Messay.
Ghetto Story peaked at No. 53 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart on September 9, 2006 and it was lead by the single of the “Ghetto Story Chapter 2″ featuring Alicia Keys which peaked at No. 77 on the Hot 100 and No. 62 in the U.K. where it remained for 2 weeks on the Singles Chart.
The single almost wasn’t to be with an Alicia Keys feature if it was up to the record label, Cham told WMV in an exclusive sit down interview.
“Atlantic Records told us Ghetto Story was not the song. To them it was just a next project but to me it was my life. It was at Giants stadium when the song took the park apart. That song was the song of the evening. FunkMaster Flex cut the live show to play it live on the air with sixty five thousand people saying “Raahh Raah”. That’s when Atlantic Records paid it attention. Then they said, they needed Lil Kim on it ,and I said you were crazy? We told them we already had Alicia Keys and they said no one gets Alicia Keys. So give it up to Alicia, the song sold 1.7M worldwide,” he said.
The song added to dancehall’s mainstream appeal as it peaked at No 15 on the US Hot R&B/Hip Hop Chart, No. 13 on the Hot Rap Songs chart and finished 2006 at No. 63 on the Year End Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs Chart.
