Alkaline Receives Billboard Plaque For ‘Top Prize’
Dancehall deejay Alkaline started the new year with a bang, after receiving a Billboard plaque for the success of his sophomore album, Top Prize. The 14-track, independently produced set peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Reggae Chart, the week of May 29, 2021.
The Champion Boy’s sister and manager Kereena “Kereberry” Beckford took to Instagram on Wednesday to show off the deejay’s latest achievement.
“DettaCity this is for y’all 🎭🎭,” she wrote.
“Thanks for the tremendous support… we are in this together…we love the fans and we appreciate how y’all care for us.. Forever grateful 💥💥”
One of the album’s producers—Maurice Linton of Armz House Records—had shown off his own plaque for the project in July 2021.
According to data provided to DancehallMag from Billboard’s sales tracker MRC Data, last month, Top Prize moved 17,000 units in total consumption from sales and streaming in the US between its release on May 14 release and December 15, 2021. This included a total of 2,000 in pure albums sales, 2,000 in digital song sales, and 17,747,000 and 3,264,000 in On-Demand Audio and Video Streams respectively.
There was a bit of controversy last November when the nominees for the 64th annual Grammy Awards were announced. Fans argued that the Fast deejay was ‘getting a fight’ after his project was absent from the Best Reggae Album category. Critics argued, however, that the Recording Academy members are required to vote solely based upon quality, without consideration for sales and chart performance.
“From the announcement of Alkaline’s sophomore album to its official release and the ongoing criticism, we’ve held ourselves to an international standard whilst keeping the fans at the core of everything we do,” Beckford told THE WEEKEND STAR during an interview at the time.
“So, when the team compiled the body of work to reflect where our talent was artistically, and meet the demands of the fans as well as stakeholders, we knew of the challenges and met them head on. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Reggae Album charts, No. 1 on the US Current Reggae album chart and was 56th on the US Top Current Album sales chart,” she said.
Alkaline’s Top Prize was also ranked at No. 24 on the Billboard Reggae Albums Year-End chart, which was dominated by Reggae projects.
Top Prize followed Alkaline’s debut album, New Level Unlocked which enjoyed a No. 1 debut on the Billboard Reggae chart in 2016.
The deejay’s most recent release is titled Sense. The project which was a collaboration between Autobamb and Zimi Records has almost 900,000 views on YouTube.