I'm late to this discussion but I'm wondering why no one answered this. Are there not a few names that could go here? Since you asked for just one, I'd say Eminem...he surprise dropped both of his last albums no promo and they sold tremendously.

I have no idea why people on here would've been expecting Ye and Dolla to "flop" tho, whatever number that would mean for Ye in 2024. He's Kanye West.

Finally! Thank you Beyoncé!

His last album did 150k off streaming with more tracks, unless he has physicals at launch, he is not outdoing this without a label.

I'll repost the actual question that was asked.

Name another artist who debuted 2004 or earlier not named Beyonce who can drop an independent record right now and go #1

That's what I answered, not who could "outdo this"

Even if he does, he definitely looking like this in it

Without a label, that 150k number will probably go down a lot and I don't think the low 100s or high 90s or whatever guarantee a number 1 unless nobody is dropping. Taylor Swift and those Country artists do like 100k plus even in their 10th week or whatever.
If he drops independently when nobody else is dropping (or has dropped for weeks) then surely he'll go number 1.

I don't think Vultures 2 will even debut at 1 with Ariana dropping the same day with physicals.

Well, right. I was taking the context of last week's releases, where nobody else that big dropped. Same situation, swap out Y$ for Em, I think an Em album could take it

Idk if he'd outdo Usher's 90k something for sure without a label and without physicals. But it's all hypotheticals, so you might be right as well.

Right I could be wrong too lol. I don't think there's no one else who could do it which is what I think the og post was implying. That doesn't make it any less of an achievement to me though. Shoutout to Ye and Dolla.

You're right, Em could definately. There are multiple artists who can. Not many tho

Eminem. Debuted in 1996 and would easily go #1 if he dropped an album today. I expect a new Jay Z album would debut at #1 today as well, if only just off the hype. Another artist who debuted in 1996.

Yea I'm pretty sure Jay-Z could do it. He may not sell crazy numbers but he has enough of a loyal fanbase and general rap fanbase to get him the spot. Not to mention he has experience with the label and music business.

We actually don't know cause Hov been pushing his sales w deals last releases right?

We don't really know about anything we're talking about lol it's all imaginary and just thoughts. I was gonna suggest Rihanna's comeback too (2005 debut) and she did a deal like Hov on her last release. You never know

The one million from Sprint weren't counted for last release. He still put massive numbers, that too considering he was just on Tidal.

Damn

Thank you for sharing.

If Ye was squeaky clean and backed by Universal this album would of pushed 300k lol

People obviously love the music and we got 2 more coming

Okay so that’s at most FOUR artists who have been releasing music for 20+ years that we are agreeing can independently go #1 today, and only one of those artists just went on a Nazi press tour a year and a half ago. Why are we acting like it’s not impressive that he’s still as successful as he is?

You brought up R. Kelly but if he were to drop an album today that s*** wouldn’t even chart

Wayne on a slow month.

Time to run this back up again:
ktt2.com/ifpi-top-10-global-recording-artists-thread-2022-top-10-currently-32543509