According to her official website, just a month after it’s release, megastar Beyoncé’s fourth studio album, appropriately titled 4, has been certified platinum in the United States.
The album, released June 28th, sold 310,000 in it’s first week of sales, debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200 charts, making this Beyoncé’s fourth consecutive #1 album. In the second week, the album remained #1, despite an 63% sales decrease, selling 115,000 copies.
Congratulations to Beyoncé. Now, it’s only a matter of time before information about an upcoming tour starts surfacing.
DRAKE COLLABORATES WITH STEVIE WONDER
After headlining his October’s Very Own Festival in Toronot, Young Money signee Drake talked with MuchMusic to reveal some exclusive information about the legendary Stevie Wonder collaborating with him on his upcoming sophomore album, Take Care.
“Stevie Wonder is a very close friend of mine. I’m honored to call him a friend, someone who embraced me very early in this music business,” he said. “This is an exclusive right here, because it’s MuchMusic, and we’re Canadian: Stevie Wonder is actually on ‘Take Care.’”
“He helped me out with a lot of the music, just came and sat with me, listened to my music, told me where I could add a couple things to make it more sonically appealing, and not only that but we actually are writing together, which is an incredible experience.”
“So I hit him, asked him to come by, and with no hesitation he hit me back like, ‘I will be there.’ Not only that, but he was supposed to do two songs and he did like six,” Drake said. “It was incredible.”
In addition to this news, Drake released his lead single, “Headlines” over the weekend. Take Care is slated to hit stores this fall, October 24th.
LIL’ KIM INKS NEW DEAL
Rumors swarmed earlier this year that Lil’ Kim had signed a deal with former “Magic Stick” collaborator 50 Cent’s label, G-Unit. However, it seems that new developments have arisen, and although before, she spoke about releasing her next record independently, the Queen Bee has opted to tap a major label for her new release.
According to the Universal Music roaster, Lil’ Kim is officially a part of the Universal Music Group family.
This is quite interesting. It’s not certain whether Kim is linked to Universal Motown, Geffen, Interscope, A&M, Def Jam or any other labels underneath the UMG umbrella. However, it is quite interesting that Lil’ Kim would choose to be labelmates with her obvious rival, Nicki Minaj.
Rapper/actor Common is set to drop his ninth studio album through Warner Brothers records. The lead single “Ghetto Dreams” features Nas and hit the web earlier this month. 
