The “Itty Bitty Piggy” prophecy has been fulfilled. Thanks to Pink Friday 2, Nicki Minaj, in her words, singlehandedly annihilated every rap girl in the building. Minaj’s latest release gave her two new weapons to add to the war chest: the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 by any female rapper ever (three) and the biggest female rap album of the decade. Taken together, the artist can safely continue her yearslong chart domination with her fifth full-length album, backed by the fact that Pink Friday 2 makes her the first female rapper to score a No. 1 album in two different decades. In terms of the more granular numbers, the album ran up a total consumption of 228,000-plus units. With 170 million album streams, Minaj earned the biggest female rap album and R&B/hip-hop sales and streaming week of 2023. The album, her seventh top-ten hit on the Billboard 200, also led the “Album Sales” chart, the “R&B/Hip-Hop Albums” chart, and the “Rap Albums” chart. Overall, Pink Friday 2 landed in the top-ten overall album debuts of the year. “I’m still the highest-selling female rapper, for the record,” Nicki Minaj rapped on “Truffle Butter” in 2015. Still true.
