Lil' Wayne Stalks Kanye's First Day Sales, Moves 423K

Doubt on Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter III selling nearly a million in first week sales may cease as the New Orleans, Louisiana rapper’s first-day sales have rounded out at about 423,000.

According to Billboard, the album will easily gain the number one spot on the Top 200 charts and is still expected to sell between 850,000-950,000 at the end of the first week. As previously reported by, Tha Carter III may outsell both Mariah Carey and Usher’s first week sales combined.

The nine Nielsen SoundScan merchants that reported make up nearly 80 percent of all U.S. album sales. These accounts include Trans World Entertainment, Best Buy, CircuitCity, Starbucks, iTunes, Target, Borders, Anderson Merchandisers and Handleman Co.

Last year, Kanye West’s Graduation first-day numbers evened out at 437,000, only three percent more as compared to Tha Carter III.

Prior to releasing the album, Weezy has made various strategic marketing moves including a partnership with social shopping company Musicane that allowed fans the ability to sell the album digitally on their own websites.

A surprising and positive reaction to Tha Carter III came from Bad Boy president Diddy as he named Weezy “the greatest, youngest, rapper alive” earlier this week.