The personal and professional saga involving Daystar “Tory Lanez” Peterson and Megan “Thee Stallion” Pete continues to play out in front of the entire world. The latest chapter of the fallout between the two rap stars came in the form of Lanez’s Daystar album which hit DSPs last Friday.
According to HitsDailyDouble, Lanez is on pace to have the fourth-largest debut sales numbers next week. Daystar is expected to move 40,000-50,000 first-week units. That total would currently put Lanez behind other new releases by Machine Gun Kelly (Tickets to My Downfall, 80-90k), SuperM (Super One, 70-80k), and Joji (Nectar, 65-75k). Those albums will also be competing against former Number Ones by Taylor Swift, Pop Smoke, Juice WRLD, and YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
In July, Megan suffered gunshot wounds after attending a party with Lanez at Kylie Jenner’s home. After first choosing not to publicly address the incident, the Suga EP creator went on to say Lanez was the person that fired at her feet in a Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Lanez kept mostly quiet until he told his side of the story on Daystar.
The Daystar album was met with mixed reactions. Some listeners acknowledged the musical content presented on the LP and the artist’s right to present his version of events. In contrast, critics took issue with Lanez attempting to monetize Megan’s traumatic experience without taking any personal responsibility for his actions. Detractors also called out the 28-year-old Canadian for dropping the project the day after news broke that the Louisville officers who killed Breonna Taylor were not charged with murder.
Lanez has yet to score a #1 album in America. He currently has four Top 5 entries on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2019, Chixtape 5 debuted at #2 with a career-best 83,000 first-week units. Daystar seems to be headed to a sales week slightly lower than 2016’s I Told You (52,000 units), 2018’s Memories Don’t Die (54,000 units), and 2018’s Love Me Now? (54,000 units).