New York, July 28: Last summer he bragged about inventing the remix. Now his new deal through the Universal label has produced Sean P. Diddy Combs' biggest Nielsen SoundScan week since 1997.
With an all-star cast on his "Bad Boys II" soundtrack, the movie's big opening week and Diddy making wall-to-wall TV appearances, his latest production netted an opening week of 324,000 copies.
That was more than enough for his third No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and his fourth on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Hot rap rookie Chingy followed at No. 2 with first-week sales of 157,000 copies.
The "Bad Boys II" number not only beats last year's 255,500 start for "We Invented the Remix," the final Arista outing for Diddy's Bad Boy label, but also tops each of his albums since his first solo project, "No Way Out," made noise with an opener of 561,000 units sold. That was in 1997, when he still wanted us to call him Puff Daddy.
In 1999, "Forever" began with 205,000 copies sold, while "The Saga Continues" did 186,000 when it hit stores in 2001.
"Bad Boys II" is only the fifth soundtrack to debut at No. 1 in the history of The Billboard 200 and the first since "8 Mile" arrived at the top last October.
Like "8 Mile" and "Howard Stern's Private Parts," the "Bad Boys" sequel has the distinction of debuting at No. 1 on the box-office chart as its soundtrack does so on the albums chart.
The "Bad Boys II" set had the third-best opening sales week ever for a soundtrack, topped only by the aforementioned "8 Mile" (702,000 units) and the Snoop Dogg vehicle "Murder Was the Case," which opened at No. 1 with 329,000 units in 1994. The only other soundtracks to have debuted at No. 1 were "Private Parts" and "Gridlock'd."
Diddy was frequently seen on TV as this soundtrack came to market, including "Entertainment Tonight," "Live With Regis and Kelly," "Access Hollywood," "Extra" and MTV's "Total Request Live," not to mention his ongoing "Making the Band 2." 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Nelly and Justin Timberlake are among the artists featured on the album.
Bureau Report
