The Hamilton craze continues — despite, or perhaps in part in opposition to, America’s new musical theater critic/racist late capitalist dictator’s opinions of it. Indeed, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit historical/biographical rap musical about Alexander Hamilton continues to find ways to break records — and now it’s for the just-released Hamilton Mixtape. Billboard has announced that the album has topped its Billboard 200 Albums Chart, reaching no. 1 in its debut week, and sending The Weeknd’s Starboy into the no. 2 slot. Neilsen Music reports figures of 187,000 “album units” earned for the mixtape, and 169,000 earned through traditional album sales.
The mixtape has actually gotten higher ratings that the soundtrack to the play itself, which peaked at no. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart. (That said, it was still an exceedingly rare feat — it was highest on the charts any cast album had been since 1963.) Part of the mixtape’s success surely comes from its high celebrity presence, with contributions from Nas, Chance the Rapper, John Legend, Usher, Busta Rhymes, Queen Latifah, Sia, The Roots, Ja Rule, Regina Spektor, Ashanti, Jimmy Fallon, Jill Scott, Andra Day, Wiz Khalifa, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and more.
Meanwhile, the show itself is sold out for the near future in both its Broadway and Chicago runs (for Broadway, until July 2017, for Chicago, until February 2017).