Sean Paul‘s ‘Scorcha’ has opened on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart at No. 6, while Shaggy’s Sinatra tribute Come Fly Wid Mi did not make the Top 10—after both albums received some paltry first-week numbers.
Released on May 27, Paul’s ‘Scorcha’ is the multi-platinum Dancehall superstar’s eighth studio album, and his first full-length project on the iconic Island Records, with which he signed a multi-album deal in 2016.
‘Scorcha’ has sold 1,700 equivalent album units from sales and streaming in the United States during its first week of release, according to data provided to DancehallMag from sales tracker Luminate (formerly MRC Data). This includes 600 copies in album sales and 1,400,000 in on-demand audio and video streaming recorded during its first week.
Shaggy‘s Sting-produced ‘Come Fly Wid Mi’, which was released on May 25, has sold 358 copies, according to Luminate, which said there was no streaming data to report for the album.
Globally, Sean Paul has been YouTube and Spotify’s most-streamed Jamaican Dancehall artist for the last two years running. ‘Scorcha’ is his tenth entry on the Billboard Reggae chart and notably, one of three of his albums currently in the Top 10 listing dated June 11.
However, while his older material continues to set the bar for Jamaican artists, the streams and sales on Paul’s recent releases have been less robust than the totals for recent albums by Shenseea, Popcaan, and Koffee.
His seventh album Live N Livin peaked at No. 9 on the chart with 1,000 units sold during its first week of release in March 2021. His sixth album, ‘Full Frequency’, debuted at No. 1 with 2,160 units in 2014, according to the Jamaica Observer.
Paul’s Grammy Award-winning and 2X Platinum ‘Dutty Rock’, was No. 1 with 65,000 first-week units in 2002. His third album, The Trinity, had debuted at No. 1 with 107,000 units, and was later certified Platinum in the US for sales exceeding 1 million units.
Interestingly, no new album from a Jamaican artist has had over 5,000 units sold in the US in a single week since Popcaan’s FIXTAPE (8,800 units) debuted on the chart at No. 2 in 2020. In the last two years, only five albums have crossed 2,000 units sold in one week, namely Buju Banton’s ‘Upside Down’ 2020 (2,995 units), Alkaline’s ‘Top Prize’ (2,957 units), Masicka’s ‘438’ (2,864 units), Shenseea’s ‘Alpha’ (4,900 units) and Koffee’s ‘Gifted’ (3,500 units).
On the Billboard Reggae Albums chart, Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Legend, first released in May 1984, remains at No. 1 for 126 consecutive weeks. It routinely sells over 11,000 units in the United States each week, which is often as much as the other 9 entries on the weekly chart combined. ‘Legend’ is also currently at No. 53 on the Billboard 200, where it boasts the second-longest run in the history of that chart (733 weeks), after Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.
Shaggy’s Best of Shaggy: The Boombastic Collection is at No. 2 on the Billboard Reggae chart this week, followed by Stick Figure’s World On Fire and Set In Stone at No. 3 and 5, and UB40’s Greatest Hits at No. 4.
Sean Paul’s ‘Dutty Classics Collection’ is at No. 7, while ‘Dutty Rock’ is at No. 9.
Brooklyn Reggae band The Frightnrs’ sophomore album ‘Always’ has debuted at No. 8, while Koffee’s ‘Gifted’ is on the chart for its tenth week at No. 10.
