Travis Scott's 'Days Before Rodeo' debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200

Travis Scott is poised to top the Billboard 200 this week with a collection that his most devoted fans have been listening to for years. According to Billboard, the rapper's Days Before Rodeo mixtape is on track to become the country's biggest project.

Travis Scott.

Kristina Nagel

Days Before Rodeo is expected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, earning the rapper's fourth top-selling album. The mixtape apparently sold another 156,000 equivalent sales across the country last week, which proved to be enough to topple the incumbent champion.

After three weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, Sabrina Carpenter's Short N' Sweet will eventually slide off. The title premiered at No. 1 three frames ago and has been dominating the show ever since.

Days Before Rodeo went a long way to reach the top of the charts. The mixtape was first published in 2014, when Scott was still a rising star in the hip-hop industry. It was not commercially distributed at the time, hence it was ineligible for Billboard charts.

Scott marked the title's 10-year anniversary last month by making it available in download stores and streaming platforms for the first time. That meant that, after a decade, Days Before Rodeo was finally eligible for the Billboard charts—but the rapper still had to work hard to get it as high as a set can go.

Days Before Rodeo entered the Billboard 200 as the runner-up, but only just. He lost the competition to Carpenter's Short N' Sweet by only 1,000 equivalent units. It soon began to drop drastically in the competition rankings, but that wasn't the end of the studio effort's story.

Days Before Rodeo dropped from second to 30th place on the Billboard 200 in its second week. Then it dropped to No. 106. It now rockets from that modest position to the penthouse in a huge leap.

Days Before Rodeo gains significantly after the vinyl copy of the record is shipped. When it comes to the Billboard charts, a song or album's sales are counted only when they are delivered to customers, not when they are purchased. So, those fans who purchased a copy of the mixtape on vinyl had their sales included in this week's rankings, which contribute to its meteoric rise.