A Jewish teen rapper has had his first album debuted at the top of Billboard 200 chart.
“Blue Slide Park,” the first album-length effort from Mac Miller, a 19-year-olf Pittsburgh-reared emcee, sold 144,000 copies in its first week.
The rapper, whose real name is Malcolm McCormick, has a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. He has a prominent “chai” tattoo in Hebrew letters on his upper arm.
The rapper’s feat is all the more remarkable since his album is independently distributed by Rostrum Records. The last and only indie album release to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard chart was Tha Dogg Pound’s “Dogg Food” back in 1995.
Miller’s meteoric rise is in large part due to his adroit use of social-networking media. He has more than a million “likes” on Facebook and nearly the same number of followers on Twitter.
Miller’s most popular song on YouTube is “Donald Trump,” and the “Celebrity Apprentice” host has signaled his approval of the track. Another big hit for Miller is “Nikes on my Feet,” which is an ode to his footwear in the same tradition as Run DMC’s “My Adidas.”
