ONE-DAY SALES: CLIPSE HEADED FOR TOP 10?

While the Top 5 continues to be made up of young rappers and elder songsmiths, the Top 10 on next week’s Top 50 Albums chart will likely be the legitimate turf of—you guessed it—more young rappers.

Dare us to write “Top” one more time. Go ahead.

Yes indeed, according to early reports from national accounts, Neptunes homies (and Avril Lavigne labelmates) The Clipse will see their debut effort, Lord Willin’ (Arista) notch about 100k in sales this week, which puts the rap duo in contention for the upcoming chart’s upper fifth.

Meanwhile, Nelly and Eminem will continue to fight it out at the top, and if this week’s showing is any indication, it’s likely to remain a close battle.

No word yet if a rumored freestyle battle between the two rhymesters will actually be used to determine next week’s chart ranking. Likewise, reports that Nelly called Eminem’s mom a “slut” and Eminem just nodded could not be confirmed as of this writing.