This will be Jhené’s first number one album.
Jhené Aiko has reached a milestone she had never achieved before: a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.
Her new album, Westside Whimsy, debuts atop the chart with 74,000 equivalent album units, exceeding the earlier estimate of 73,000. Its opening week included 71.33 million on-demand streams and 3,500 pure album sales.
The debut gives Jhené her first Billboard 200 No. 1, surpassing the No. 2 peak of 2020’s Chilombo. That album went on to receive an Album of the Year nomination at the Grammys. Six years later, she has returned with the biggest chart debut of her career.
The 20-track Westside Whimsy features Kendrick Lamar, Larry June, Ab-Soul, Tyga, and Ohma. Kendrick appears on “So Good,” continuing a creative relationship that stretches back more than a decade.
It felt like an unusually quiet release week, and Jhené took full advantage. Still, her success was about more than weak competition. There has been a noticeable void for this kind of dreamy, introspective R&B, and hearing Jhené deliver it again felt genuinely refreshing.
Now the projected No. 1 is an actual No. 1. For Jhené, it arrived with 74,000 opening units—and on her own terms.
Quincy is the creator of Ratings Game Music. He loves writing about music, taking long walks on beaches, and spaghetti that fights him back.
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