Childish Gambino's newly-released "Awaken, My Love!" is an unforgettable experience from beginning to end, so it should come as no surprise that the album will produce the highest first-week sales total of the artist/producer's five-year music career.

According to HDD, "Awaken, My Love!" is on pace to move 110-115k SPS (sales plus streaming) units, with 68-73k coming from physical and digital sales. By comparison, Gambino's last album, 2013's Gold-certified Because the Internet, achieved 96k first week sales.

Despite the impressive sales figures, however, Gambino's third studio album, released by Glassnote, won't be his first No. 1 album. "Awaken, My Love!" is slated to debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 later this week, behind The Hamilton Mixtape (195-205k SPS) and The Rolling Stones' Blue & Lonesome (113-118k). 

So, how do Gambino's first week sales for "Awaken, My Love!" stack up against some of the biggest hip-hop releases of 2016? Setting aside Drake's Views, which sold a whopping 1.04 million album-equivalent units in its first week, Awaken performed very well when compared side-by-side with Kendrick Lamar's collection of loosies, untitled unmastered., which racked up 178k, and Future's EVOL, which earned 134k. Gambino outsold Jeezy's mixtape series-inspired Trap or Die 3 (86k), Gucci Mane's post-prison comeback album Everybody Looking (68k), Mac Miller's love album The Divine Feminine (48k) and A$AP Ferg's Always Strive and Prosper (35k).

Despite Universal's participation as a physical distributor for the album, Gambino's LP is a truly independent release, which makes these first-week figures all the more impressive. Chance The Rapper and Tech N9ne are proud.

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By DJ Z, who loves to argue with you on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Instagram