Central Cee has made a global chart impact with his long-awaited debut album.
Can’t Rush Greatness (Live Yours/Columbia) achieved the biggest streaming day one total of all time for a UK rapper globally on Spotify.
In the UK, the album opened at No.1 – outselling the rest of the Top 5 combined – with consumption of 42,372 units (17,935 physical copies, 1,923 downloads and 22,614 sales-equivalent streams), according to the Official Charts Company. That marked an improvement of 42.4% on the opening week for mixtape 23, released three years ago.
It’s the first UK rap album to reach No.1 since D-Block Europe a year ago.
The week one streaming total is the third fastest of all time by a UK rapper – only albums by Dave and Stormzy have amassed greater UK streaming consumption for domestic rap in their opening week. Central Cee has the best week one streaming result since Dave’s We’re All Alone In This Together in 2021.
Can’t Rush Greatness, his second No.1, is Central Cee’s first album or mixtape since moving to Columbia and Sony Music.
He has also scored two simultaneous Top 10 singles for the first time – Dave collaboration CRG is new at No.6 (28,799 units) and the previous week’s new entry GBP (with 21 Savage) is at No.7 (27,686 units) with consumption up 10.4% week-on-week. CRG is the fourth shared hit between Central Cee and Dave, the first and biggest of which, Sprinter, spent 10 weeks at No.1 in 2023, and has to-date consumption of 1,737,703 units.
Few artists truly define a generation and Central Cee’s authenticity, story, lyricism and distinctive flow fully set him apart
Dipesh Parmar
In addition, Central Cee has a new entry at No.13 with Lil Durk on Truth In The Lies (19,472 units). But for Official Charts Company rules limiting primary artists to three chart entries, the UK rapper would have had a further 14 entries in the Top 100. Central Cee has now had 39 hits in the course of his career to date, 10 of them making the Top 10.
Can’t Rush Greatness has also performed strongly internationally. It peaked at No.1 in 57 countries on Apple Music and finished as the highest new entry at No.4 on Spotify’s Global Weekly Top Albums. It was the No.1 album on Spotify’s weekly rankings in the UK and made the Top 20 on Spotify in the US.
GBP is at No.52 on Spotify’s Global Weekly Top Songs – a climb of 41 places powered by 14.4 million streams in the past week.
Dipesh Parmar, president of Columbia Records, said: “Few artists truly define a generation and Central Cee’s authenticity, story, lyricism and distinctive flow fully set him apart. Can’t Rush Greatness further cements Central Cee’s status as one of the prominent global figures in the UK music scene. It’s a true partnership with Live Yours, Columbia UK and US and Sony worldwide. Huge congratulations to Central Cee, the mastermind that is his manager Bello and his team for this monumental global moment and their journey so far.”
Bello was honoured at the Music Week Awards last year in the Manager Of The Year category.
Central Cee is nominated for three BRIT Awards at the ceremony in March.
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