By The Hip Hop Writer
Hip Hop Vibe Staff Writer
Even in a relatively silent year, Lil Wayne managed to have the highest-selling album of the year. Lil Wayne jumped head-first into recording Tha Carter IV, following his prison sentence. At the time, Lil Wayne was the most-popular rapper in the game, but his album sales were down. The sales were down because Wayne was unable to be active in promoting his new releases.
Despite releasing I Am Not a Human Being only a month before coming out of prison, Lil Wayne released the first single from Tha Carter IV, “6 Foot 7 Foot,” with Cory Gunz, in December. The song became one of the first hit singles of 2011. During the middle of its run, Lil Wayne remixed Rick Ross’ “I’m Not a Star,” even bringing him in for verses, while renaming the song “John (If I Die Today).”
Upon dissing Jay-Z in the middle of the summer, all the attention shifted from his Watch the Throne album, with Kanye West, to Lil Wayne’s highly-anticipated Carter IV. When the album was released, it shattered the record previously set by Jay-Z and Kanye West, weeks before, selling nearly 1 million copies on iTunes during its first week. Over the following months, Tha Carter IV has continued to sell records and the album slowly crept to triple platinum status over the past week.
Tha Carter IV joins Tha Carter III as Lil Wayne’s lone triple platinum albums.
