Kanye West outduels 50 Cent

Kanye West won in a landslide in his face-off with fellow rapper 50 Cent. West’s Graduation outsold his rival’s Curtis 957,000 to 691,000 in the first week of release, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures.

The two discs topped Billboard’s albums chart, followed by country star Kenny Chesney’s Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, which sold 387,000 copies.

Graduation’s sales are the largest since 50 Cent’s The Massacre opened with 1.1 million copies in March 2005 and the first album to surpass 800,000 since West’s Late Registration sold 860,000 copies in August 2005. Graduation also set a first-week record with 133,000 digital downloads.

“It’s a great day for hip-hop and for artistry because people in hip-hop emulate success,” says Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, president and CEO of West’s label, Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam. “It signals that with the right amount of attention and a credible album, there is still an interest in buying physical CDs.”

Jay-Z says West got a boost in street credibility with defiant single Can’t Tell Me Nothing. His Daft Punk-fueled Stronger did well on rhythmic and pop radio stations. Most reviewers favored Graduation over Curtis.

Despite all the attention leading up to the Sept. 11 releases, it was the quality of music, not the hype, that drove sales, says Island Def Jam chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid.

He says the date was chosen to take advantage of West’s participation in MTV’s Video Music Awards two nights earlier.

And while the rivalry got people talking, such pairings are unlikely to become routine.

Competition is “invigorating to the participants and to the spectators,” Reid says. “But if people think this is a new way of releasing records, they are going to be sadly mistaken.”

The public was fascinated in this case thanks to the outsized personalities of the controversial rappers. For weeks, the debate raged on radio, TV, magazines and blogs.

Early on, 50 Cent, who previously had outsold West by a wide margin, declared he would quit making solo records if he finished second. He has since backed off, saying he has another album in the works (Before I Self-Destruct) and blaming his label, Interscope Records, for not promoting Curtis well.

A new version of 50’s hit I Get Money (Billion Dollar Remix), featuring Jay-Z and Diddy, was released Monday. “We’re still competing, but we’re not enemies,” says Jay-Z.

This week’s numbers were good news for the ailing record industry. West, 50 Cent and Chesney sold 2.04 million albums combined to surpass total sales for the previous week’s top 200 albums (2 million). Still, overall sales are down 9% compared with the same week last year.

West Beats 50 Cent Again

LONDON (AP) — Kanye West has 50 Cent’s number.

The rapper beat out 50 yet again, this time at Britain’s Mobo (Music of Black Origin) Awards, where he won Best Hip Hop act on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, West was crowned the victor in the pair’s hotly contested battle to see which one of their albums, released on the same day, would sell the most in the first week: West’s “Graduation” sold 957,000, while 50’s “Curtis” sold 691,000 in the United States.

West also beat 50 on top of the British album charts. 50 was supposed to attend the Mobos but canceled his European appearances this week.

Other winners at the Mobo Awards included troubled British diva Amy Winehouse, who was named Best U.K. Female. The retro-soul singer who has been dogged by concerns over her health, reports of drug use and a string of canceled concerts.

Singer-songwriter Ne-Yo collected both the Best R&B title and Best Song, for “Because Of You,” at the ceremony, held at London’s 02 Arena.

Barbados-born Rihanna, who had a huge worldwide hit with “Umbrella,” won Best International Act.

50 Cent promises to quit if Kanye outsells him

NEW YORK – 50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West’s upcoming disc, and he’s betting his solo career on it.

Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West’s “Graduation” could rival those for his “Curtis” CD.

“Let’s raise the stakes,” the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. “If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I’ll no longer write music. I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out anymore solo albums.”

 

An e-mail sent to West’s publicist wasn’t immediately returned Friday.

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, has been publicly disparaging of West before. In 2005, he suggested the 29-year-old rapper’s popularity was only possible because of 50’s own success.

But they recently collaborated in the studio. Their work, though, isn’t scheduled to appear on either new album.

50 Cent’s last full-length solo album, “The Massacre,” was the best-selling disc of 2005 and sold more than 1.14 million copies in its first week of release. The same year, West’s “Late Registration” opened by selling more than 860,000 copies in its first week.

50 Cent: ‘I Feel Like Kanye West Is Successful Because Of Me’

“Everybody feels a way about K/ But at least y’all feel something,” Kanye West raps about himself on “Bring Me Down,” a track from his new LP. Some detractors have said West talks too much. 50 Cent, however, is one person who says he wants to hear a little bit more from West.

For James Blunt, life after ‘Beautiful’: Surviving a megahit

NEW YORK: Many songwriters would kill for the predicament that James Blunt is in: famous for one song, and only one.

That hit, “You’re Beautiful,” is a dewy ballad about catching a glimpse of a former girlfriend in the subway. Critics loathed it, but it reached No. 1 from Latvia to Latin America and helped Blunt’s debut album, “Back to Bedlam,” sell 11 million copies around the world. As last year’s combination wedding song, television soundtrack song and supermarket background music, “You’re Beautiful” was more than popular – it was ubiquitous.