Without a paywall: https://archive.is/DhNFw

The full-length doesn’t make it onto a single Billboard ranking this week. Not the Billboard 200, not the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, not any genre-specific or consumption-specific tallies. For an artist of Smith’s stature, that’s a harsh result. He’s still a household name, and with so much attention focused on the release, it felt like it could become at least a minor win. It didn’t.

In the daily mail piece, the picture is even more bleak:

Last month, the actor and rapper, 56, released his latest record Based On A True Story, but despite his superstar status, the album only sold 268 copies in its first week in the UK.

In the sun:

But it shifted just 232 copies on streaming services and was downloaded only 36 times.