Nicki Minaj‘s fifth studio album Pink Friday 2 released via Republic Records is predicted to sell 200,000 in its first week in the US according to HITTSDD. It will be her highest sales debut in over a decade.
Her career highest selling first week album sales are 375,000 for Pink Friday(2010), 253,000 for Pink Friday : Roman Reloaded (2012), 244,000 for The Pink Print (2014), her last album Queen (2018) earned 185,000 album equivalent units and her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape (2009) did 80,000 units in its first week. The latter holds the record for Billboard’s highest charting female rap mixtape debut.
Pink Friday 2 got a boost in sales on Thursday, the last day of counting for Billboard sales tracker Luminate after more than 300,000 people tuned into Minaj’s early morning live with Twitch streamer Kai Carlo Cenat – breaking the online personality’s live audience record.
Both being of Trinidadian heritage bantered jokingly online for about an hour with Nicki even promising him a “Trini Back Hand”, code word for slap.
KC welcomed Minaj into his streaming den with his friends and complimented her throughout the stream. She danced and gave a few compliments along the way saying “You look better, a little bit, you are shorter than I thought” as they kept the streamers engaged all throughout going back and forth about various topics.
At one point Kai’s emotions took over when they were listening to the Basbeats produced dancehall song from Pink Friday 2 “Forward From Trini” featuring Skillibeng an Skeng and slammed his heels on the table shouting “Bomboclaat”, a Jamaican curse word to the shock of Minaj.
During the live stream, Minaj revealed that “Needles” with Drake was originally for Drake‘s album (For All The Dogs) but Drake decided not to use it. The OVO rapper called her and said, “I am not using ‘Needles’ for the album because it doesn’t fit the sonic vibe, do you want it?” and she answered, “f*ck Yeah.”
“The first time I heard Needle was the last time I was in Trinidad,” she said.
Nicki recalled being in Trinidad for carnival last year saying, “last year I was out here with Skeng, they love Skeng,” and Kai responded “Skeng is nice.”
Regarding her song “Let Me Calm You Down” with J. Cole, Minaj shared that, ” J. Cole did a very thought provoking verse and also was a delight to be around.”
She gave a shout out to Beenie Man for inspiring the track “Memories”. She added “Skillibeng and Skeng, did they fucking thing,” confirming the influence of dancehall on the album.
The digital version of Pink Friday 2 released on December 8, 2023 has 22 tracks; however, the physical releases include only 10. Some fans speculate that the remaining tracks might not have been completed in time to meet pressing and release deadlines.
In addition to the standard release, a digital deluxe edition was made available on her webstore, featuring a bonus remix of the album’s “Beep Beep” with 50 Cent, priced at $5. Another digital deluxe edition, exclusive to the webstore, was released on December 13, also priced at $5.
This version includes a new bonus track, “Love Me Enough,” featuring R&B stars Keyshia Cole and Monica. Nicki Minaj had previously hinted that she would unveil one new bonus track from Pink Friday 2 each day from Monday to Thursday of the week.
With the album still No. 1 in 43 countries on Apple Music including the US, Billboard predicts the Pink Friday 2 will debut at No. 1 next week on the Billboard 200 chart.
Pink Friday 2 has already sold 500,000 units in the US and is eligible for Gold certification.
Watch full live stream of Nicki and Kai below
