Kanye West Tops 50 Cent On The Billboard 200 Albums Chart!

NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - Kanye West's 'Graduation' sold almost 957,000 CDs in its first week when Nielsen SoundScan numbers are released yesterday - leaving 50 Cent's Curtis in the dust with a still-respectable figure of more than 691,000.

'It feels overwhelming,' Kanye West told reporters yesterday, as he went to Def Jam's offices. 'Everyone is coming up to me and telling me how proud they are of me.'
'We're not gloating. He's celebrating his win. ... in his mind, he believed he could win the whole time,' Def Jam President Jay-Z also told.

A disappointed 50 Cent has canceled three major performances in Europe. The three appearances were the MOBO Awards, the Vodafone Live Music Awards, and an MTV Germany performance.

Until last week, the largest sales week of 2007 had belonged to rock band Linkin Park's 'Minutes to Midnight,' which opened to 623,000 units.

West sales figures represent a career high for him. His last CD, 'Late Registration,' opened with sales of 860,000 in 2005.
Although sales in support of 50 Cent's new album are well below the totals for each of his prior releases' first week numbers, the 691,000 units sold are the second highest amount of the 2007 calendar year.

Debuting in at No. 3 was Kenny Chesney's 'Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates' bowed with 387,000 sales, the largest sales week for a country album since the Dixie Chicks' 'Taking the Long Way' sold 526,000 last year. Rolling in at No. 4 was the 'High School Musical 2' soundtrack with 133,000 copies.