Luda to take the top spot on Billboard

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Ludacris’s seventh album, Battle of the Sexes, is expected to top Billboard’s album chart this week, and sell somewhere in the range of 120,000 copies. Though this would be his weakest jump-off in years (his last work, 2008’s Theater of the Mind, moved well over 200K), it’s hard not to see it as a success. In a moment where rap superstars like Drake, 50 Cent, Gucci Mane and even Lil Wayne are struggling to go gold, Ludacris shouldn’t have that problem.

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Battle of the Sexes also breaks something of a dry spell for hip-hop, which hasn’t had many No. 1 albums in the past year. By my count, only Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z and Rick Ross hit the top spot in 2009, while R&B singers (especially female ones) have had a much easier time of it.

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Too bad Luda’s latest isn’t any good. Oh, well. At the very least, one of its songs made Kelly Ripa, of all people, look very hot in the above video. Or is that just me?