Hip-hop wins again

Rick Ross‘ elaborate album roll-out left him with a March 4th–he eventually pushed the release up a day early due to “streets demand”–release date, a release date that was eventually by the world’s hitmaker-of-the-past-year-or-so, Pharrell, who announced his new album, the first of which to be released under his new record deal at Columbia Records, would be arriving on March 3rd, the day after he would perform his #1 hit “Happy” at the Academy Awards.

Still, all of Pharrell’s stars aligning still was no match for Ross’ penchant to release number one albums (he’s released 6 official solo LP’s, five of which have debuted at #1). Mastermind cruised into pole position on Billboard today with approximate final first-week numbers of roughly 185,000, putting him comfortably ahead of Skateboard P’s first album in 8 years, G I R L, which will finish at a very respectable 110,000 first week units moved.

Schoolboy Q‘s debut album, Oxymoron, remains in the top ten, moving some odd 30,000 copies in its third week on the shelves–an impressive feat.