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J. Cole<\/a>\u2018s decision to bow out of his rap battle with Kendrick Lamar<\/a> may have led to questions about his place in hip-hop\u2019s \u201cBig Three,\u201d but his latest album is proof that he remains one of the game\u2019s biggest commercial stars.<\/p>\n The Dreamville rapper\u2019s eighth (and supposedly final) LP The Fall-Off<\/em><\/a> has debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 after earning 280,000 equivalent units in its first week, according to Billboard<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n 166,500 units came from streaming (amounting to 169.5 million on-demand official streams) and 113,000 comprised of pure album sales.<\/p>\n Of the latter figure, roughly 71 percent (80,000 units) were from vinyl sales, marking Cole\u2019s biggest ever week on vinyl.<\/p>\n The Fall-Off<\/em> also boasts the largest sales week for a hip-hop album since March 2025 when Playboi Carti<\/a>\u2018s MUSIC<\/em> topped the Billboard 200 with 298,000 opening-week units.<\/p>\n In terms of Cole\u2019s own catalog, The Fall-Off<\/em> is his seventh consecutive number one album \u2014 a streak that dates back to his 2011 debut Cole World: The Sideline Story<\/em>.<\/p>\n The North Carolina native also topped the Billboard 200 with the 2019 Dreamville compilation Revenge of the Dreamers III<\/em>, although his 2024 mixtape Might Delete Later<\/em> missed out on the top spot despite racking up a respectable 115,000 first-week units.<\/p>\n The Fall-Off<\/em> has been described by J. Cole himself as his final album<\/a>, one that was years in the making and \u201cbrings the concept of [his] first project [2007\u2019s The Come Up<\/em>] full circle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n