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Schoolboy Q, Beck albums debut high on Billboard 200 chart

Schoolboy Q performs at Rock the Bells in San Bernardino in 2013. The L.A. rapper's new album, "Oxymoron," debuted Wednesday at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)
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A Top Dawg is on top of the Billboard 200.

Schoolboy Q, part of the Black Hippy rap crew signed to L.A.’s Top Dawg Entertainment, debuted at No. 1 on Wednesday with “Oxymoron,” the first of his three albums to be released by TDE in partnership with Interscope Records.

The disc sold 139,000 copies in the week ending March 2, according to Nielsen SoundScan, enough to score Top Dawg its first No. 1 album. In 2012, Schoolboy Q’s Black Hippy bandmate Kendrick Lamar debuted at No. 2 with “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” which went on to sell 1.2 million copies and earned a Grammy nomination for album of the year.

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In a detailed post, Billboard’s Keith Caulfield notes that “Oxymoron” also scored the biggest debut for a rap album since Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” started at No. 1 in November. (Eminem got there with a somewhat more impressive number: 792,000.)

Behind Schoolboy Q, the hit soundtrack to Disney’s “Frozen” came in at No. 2, down one notch from its position last week atop the chart.

Yet with sales of 91,000 copies, “Frozen” actually posted a 2% increase over the previous week, a likely result of some prominent exposure on Sunday’s Academy Awards, where Idina Menzel -- or Adele Dazeem, as John Travolta introduced her -- performed the movie’s song “Let It Go.” That tune won the Oscar for original song.

Beck entered the chart at No. 3 with “Morning Phase,” the L.A.-based singer’s first studio album since “Modern Guilt” in 2008. It sold 87,000 copies, his second-highest chart placement after “Guero” reached No. 2 in 2005.

Other albums debuting on the Billboard 200 include Kid Cudi’s “Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon” at No. 4, Romeo Santos’ “Formula: Vol. 2” at No. 5, Dierks Bentley’s “Riser” at No. 6 and the Fray’s “Helios” at No. 8.

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Twitter: @mikaelwood

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