Pitbull Debuts At #50, Freeway Slips To #80, Jay-Z Holds Down Top 20

In a slow week for hip-hop sales, Miami rapper Pitbull had the week's highest Billboard chart debut at #50, selling 22,398 copies of his third album The Boatlift. This was less than half of the first week sales of his 2006 album El Mariel, which sold 48,000 copies and debuted at #17 on the Billboard chart last October.

In other chart news, Jay-Z remains the only hip-hop act in the top 20. His album American Gangster sold an additional 51,979 units, bringing it down three spots to #17 with total sales of 694,954.

The only other rap releases still in the top 50 are Soulja Boy's Souljaboytellem.com, which sits at #36, and Kanye West's Graduation, which sits at #48. Soulja Boy sold an additional 34,303 units, bringing his total to 415,549. Kanye moved 23,425 albums, giving him a total of 1,737,445.

Freeway's sophomore album Free At Last, which debuted last week at #42, slipped down to #80 this week with an additional 13,271 units sold. His total sales now sit at 49,384.