Nas topples Lil Wayne on the charts

Hip-hop supplanted hip-hop at the top of the album chart this week, as Nas’ Untitled debuted at No. 1 and pushed Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III to second place. The typically-controversial Nas effort bowed with 187,000 copies, a comedown from the 355,000 his last disc opened with two years ago, but a better number than the rapper likely would have managed if he’d gone through with is plan to title the album N—– (the N-word), which would have kept it ouf of a lot of stores.

Other first-timers managed fairly modest bows. John Mellencamp’s Life Death Love and Freedom, a largely drumless affair produced by T-Bone Burnett, came in at No. 7 with 56,000 units. David Banner’s The Greatest Story Ever Told managed a No. 8 entry with 52,000. Taylor Swift found two berths in the Nielsen/Soundscan top 20, as Beautiful Eyes, a brand new Wal-Mart-exclusive EP/DVD combo, broke in at No. 9 with 45,000, while her 91-week-old self-titled debut album moved up two spots to No. 12. Jam band O.A.R.’s All Sides came in at No. 13 with 33,000, while The Dark Knight soundtrack rode the smash movie’s capetails to No. 20 with 25,000.