(celebrity-gossip.net/) - With all the hissy fits being thrown by Kanye West as of late, at least he won't be freaking out about losing his little competition with 50 Cent . Preliminary reports have the "Jesus Walks" rapper leading the race of CD sales.
According to Billboard magazine, West's "Graduation" is looking to be moving between 575,000-700,000 units in its first week, while Fiddy's "Curtis" is behind with a projected 550,000 copies sold. On their first day of sales, Soundscan numbers for Kanye were 437,000 vs Fiddy's 310,000.
And that could mean bad news for Mr. Half Dollar. He famously proclaimed that he'd retire of Kanye outsold him in their first week. And the "Party Up" rapper told press, "I just don't view him as competition based on our previous sales histories."
Industry insiders think that 50's prerelease climate has hurt his first week sales. According to Jonathan Cohen, senior editor of Billboard, "I don't think it's helped 50 that so many of these prerelease singles that have come out have fizzled on the charts right away. There were street date changes. It has just not been a good run-up to this record for him."
And Cohen says that West's temper tantrums haven't actually hurt his image. "These tantrums he goes on, these outlandish comments he makes, they don't really hurt him. If anything, they've got more people interested in what he's all about." We'll see who's on top when the numbers come back this coming Tuesday.