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Kanye West and 50 Cent’s much hyped confrontation on the sales charts with rapper 50 Cent turned into a blowout, as the artist is now poised to reach nearly 1 million units of sales, to 50 Cent’s 623,000.  This is according to the dataNielson Sound Scan posted Tuesday night on Billboard.com.
 
Kanye’s release is the top release of the year, outselling Linkin Park, who hit 623,000 in first week sales in their album “Minutes to Midnight”, released back in May. 
 
The strength of Kanye’s release is surprising, given the apparent sales cannibalism that can occur when two strong artists share a release date.  Also, the hip hop industry’s recent sales declines led some to wonder if this would affect both artists.  50 Cent’s last album “The Massacre”, sold 1.1 million units in it’s first week, so this release represents a tremendous drop in sales. 
 
Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University recently commented on the releases, stating that 50 Cent was probably more impacted by the decline in hip hop music sales than Kanye.  “People are getting tired of that old gangst sh*t,” Watkins told Hot 97 in New York.  “I like 50’s music, but the rest of the country doesn’t.  At least not as much as they used to.”
 
"It feels overwhelming," West told The Associated Press, as he walked to Def Jam's offices on Tuesday afternoon. "Everyone is coming up to me and telling me how proud they are of me."
 
"We're not gloating," Def Jam President Jay-Z told AP. "He's celebrating his win. ... in his mind, he believed he could win the whole time."
 
50 Cent has been quite confident in his inaccurate prediction that he would defeat West in sales. "It's great marketing on Def Jam's part, by putting us out there at the same time and make like we can actually be compared on some level," he told the Associated Press. 
 
50 Cent has also said that he would retire if West outsold him.  He has not yet stated whether he would follow through on his promise.

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