Cardi B Scores Second No. 1 on Billboard 200 With ‘AM I THE DRAMA?’
Cardi B scores her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart as AM I THE DRAMA? debuts atop the tally (dated Oct. 4) with 200,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Sept. 25, according to Luminate. That marks 2025’s biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman. AM I THE DRAMA? is Cardi B’s second full-length studio project, and follows her chart-topping debut, Invasion of Privacy, in 2018.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
Of AM I THE DRAMA?’s 200,000 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 110,000 (equaling 145.72 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs during the tracking week — it also debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 88,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 2,000.
AM I THE DRAMA?’s opening-week sales were boosted by its availability across an array of permutations. It was issued as a standard 19-song widely available digital download album; 20-song CD and vinyl editions; and a 23-song download and streaming edition. There were also further digital variants: an iTunes Store and Apple Music edition with bonus live video tracks, a 30-track artist webstore-exclusive edition and two widely available expanded editions (with 24 tracks each).
The CD and vinyl variants for AM I THE DRAMA? were largely only available through Cardi B’s webstore and through some independent record stores. AM I THE DRAMA? was issued on two standard CD variants (one signed by the artist), seven additional CD cover variants (four of them signed, inclusive of three versions with cover art showing gone-viral photos of the artist on the stand during her assault trial in August, dubbed the “courtroom edition”) and eight deluxe CD boxed sets containing merchandise and a CD. The album was also issued on two standard vinyl editions (one signed) and nine additional vinyl variants (some with different covers and/or color vinyl, most of them signed, including a “courtroom edition” cover variant). S: Billboard