A friend owes me $1,000! I bet him that Drake’s debut CD would not go gold in the first week. Now he won’t answer his phone! LOL.

Despite wishful thinking on the part of incarcerated rapper Lil Wayne who predicted Drake would go platinum in the first week, Drake’s ‘Thanks Me Later’ won’t even be the third best selling CD in 1st week sales:

You can Thank him now, or Thank him Later, but the record industry should show its gratitude somehow because Drake’s new album is the first blockbuster of the summer, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
The half-Jewish Toronto hip-hop star who got his start in the teen TV cult hit Degrassi: The Next Generation, goes to the head of the class this week on his Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown debut, Thank Me Later, with first-week sales in the 450-475k range, making it a lock for #1.

Based on one-day sales reports from those retailers still blowing their own vuvezelas, that would be the third highest-total this year to Sade (501k) and Lady Antebellum (481k). Read more…