Lil Wayne Debuts At No. 171 On SoundScan Already?

Lil Wayne is probably platinum in the ‘hood by now thanks to Chuck T who leaked the Cash Money rapper’s album last week in response to his comments about mixtape DJs.

But it looks like Tha Carter III is still project to sell well despite bootlegging and being leaked online. Industry trade Web site Hits Daily Double is predicting the album to debut at number one.

In fact, Tha Carter III actually landed on the Billboard charts. The album was released just yesterday, however, according to SoundScan, the LP already sits at number 171 on the Top 200. Last week the album moved just over 4,000 units.

Wayne’s first single from Tha Carter III, “Lollipop,” has been ruling the charts. The Static Major-assited ‘tune is number 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart for the fourth week.

Just last week Usher scored the second highest first week sales of 2008 with 433,000 copies sold in the U.S. Mariah Carey has the biggest opening week this year with 463,000.

Lil Wayne is expected to top over 500,000 copes his first week and should earn the King of 2008 sales title. Entertainment Weekly spoke with an executive at Universal, recording home to Lil Wayne, and is reporting Tha Carter III is projected to sell between 850,000 to 950,000 copies in its first week. First day sales were on part with Kanye West’s Graduation, which came in at just under one million units sold first week.—Jayson Rodriguez, with additional reporting by Anslem Samuel