Cardi B Hits Another No. 1 with ‘AM I THE DRAMA?’ — But Is the Hype Totally Deserved?

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.

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 widely available editions of AM I THE DRAMA? contain the Billboard Hot 100-charted hits “Outside” (No. 10 peak in July), “Imaginary Playerz” (No. 70 in August), “Up” (No. 1 in March 2021) and “WAP” (featuring Megan Thee Stallion, No. 1 in August 2020).

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.

In addition to a typical promotional press run to raise awareness of the album’s release, the artist also mounted a busy schedule of in-store appearances during release week, doing photo ops and meet-and-greets with fans purchasing the album. During release week, she hit four independent record stores and a Walmart location.

The chart-topping KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack holds at No. 2 with 104,000 equivalent album units earned (down 7%). The set also notches a 10th week inside the top two on the Billboard 200. Rounding out the rest of the latest top 10 on the Billboard 200 are various artists with notable album performances.