Rapper Future Charts His Seventh No. 1 Album With Surprise Release ‘High Off Life’

Most artists only drop surprise albums once or twice, or perhaps never, but Future is not most artists. The rapper has taken to either unveiling full collections with no warning or revealing he has a project coming a very short time before it hits. The strategy has proved to be an effective one for the star, as he rarely misses the top spot on the Billboard 200 whenever he produces a brand new title, promotion or no.

The hip-hop powerhouse is back at No. 1 on the all-genre albums tally with his latest release High Off Life, which arrived with no warning on Friday, May 15. The 21-song set opens atop the Billboard 200 with 153,000 equivalent units shifted. That sum includes just 16,000 pure sales and 186 million streams, which add up to 134,000 streaming equivalent units.

High Off Life is Future’s seventh No. 1 on the Billboard 200, one of the most impressive sums in hip-hop history. He first reached the chart’s penthouse the summer of 2015 with his own DS2, which was quickly followed by What a Time to Be Alive, a mixtape he released alongside Drake. He hit the top of the tally once in 2016 with Evol and twice in 2017 (with back-to-back rulers), first with Future and then again with Hndrxx. Last year, he scored his sixth leader with The Wizrd. 

In addition to his seven champions, Future has sent six other projects into the Billboard 200’s top 10, including two solo albums—Pluto (No. 8, 2012) and Honest (No. 2, 2014)—a standalone EP—Save Me (No. 5, 2019)—and three mixtapes that served as collaborations with other bigwigs in the hip-hop space—Super Slimey with Young Thug (No. 2, 2017), Beast Mode 2 with Zaytoven (No. 3, 2018) and Wrld on Drugs with Juice WRLD (No. 2, 2018). 

High Off Life was previewed by the smash single “Life Is Good,” another collaboration between Future and Drake. The tune lifted all the way to No. 2 earlier this year, where it remained stuck for two months behind Roddy Ricch’s “The Box,” which would not relent. The track remains Future’s highest-charting single yet and one of the biggest singles in the world this year.

Second High Off Life cut “Tycoon” stalled at No. 76. It’s likely that when the Hot 100 refreshes in a little over a day, several Future tunes will find their way to the chart, upping his career count to a historic level.