Quavo Answers QRÖMELIFE’s Rough First Week: ‘1 Chapter Into Book of QRÖME’

In September, Quavo promised that every one of QRÖMELIFE’s 14 songs was a single. “It’s 14 songs. Every last song is a single, I guarantee,” he told Hypebeast. Days after the album arrived on Oct. 2, the conversation is about something else: early projections pegging its first week at about 13,000 units, and Quavo on X telling the doubters to watch his next move.

Those numbers come from chart-tracking accounts, not Billboard. Nora Music’s “early look” on Oct. 4 listed QRÖMELIFE at 13,000, and HotNewHipHop, citing Kurrco, reported the same projection and said the album might miss the top 10. Billboard’s official count for the week arrives with its chart dated Oct. 17. For scale, the same projections put Drake’s four-song HABIBTI (FOMO) deluxe around 65,000.

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The online reaction hasn’t helped. HotNewHipHop reported that some listeners compared Pharrell’s beats to DoorDash commercial jingles. Quavo’s first response came on Oct. 6:

When a Quavo fan account replied that the album “SUCKED” and asked for a different project instead, he pushed back again, according to HotNewHipHop:

A personal record with a lot riding on it

The stakes are personal. Quavo has said he made his third solo album last year while dealing with grief. Pharrell produced all 14 tracks, and the guests include Future, Tyler, the Creator, A$AP Rocky, Justin Timberlake and Offset, whose “Away” is their first song together since Culture III, Migos’ last album with the late Takeoff, Complex reports. “QRÖMELIFE is about the journey of me going through tough times in life and getting to the other side through my faith, family and my love for music,” he wrote on Instagram.

He also sold it as a stylistic stretch. Asked by the Associated Press what Pharrell brought out of him, he answered: “Just to challenge my versatility. The ‘Stir Fry’ Quavo, the ‘Congratulations’ Quavo, the ‘Apeshit’ Quavo.”

QRÖMELIFEQuavoListen on Apple Music

What comes next

If QRÖMELIFE is chapter one, the next pages are already written in part. Offset’s solo album, GMFU, arrives Oct. 23, he announced on Instagram, per HotNewHipHop. And Quavo told the AP that he and Offset are working on Migos music again: “We’re cooking right now, and the chemistry is always gonna be there.”