Success Is Certain

The album artwork, track listing, and related promo art (such as a full-website "takeover" on RapRadar) was created by Brett Lindzen. The official artwork was revealed on July 4, 2011.[2] The artwork depicts a black Rolls-Royce car parallel parked in front of the Detroit Savings Bank. The photo is in black and white.[2] Instead of Royce da 5'9"'s full stage name, the cover shows only "R5'9"" with "Royce" written in smaller font below.[2] The track list was revealed the same day with the availability for pre-order.[2]

"Writer's Block" was announced to be the first single from Success Is Certain. It was released March 29, 2011, on iTunes.[3] The song features Detroit rapper Eminem, but only on the hook. It is produced by Streetrunner and Raymond (SAROM) Diaz.[4] Royce da 5'9" originally reached out to Eminem for this song. Later, they started recording for Bad Meets Evil's EP, Hell: The Sequel.[5] It was confirmed that this would still be used on Royce's Success Is Certain. "Second Place" was released on June 14, 2011, as the second single from the album.[6][7] It was produced by DJ Premier. There were rumors that Royce had originally planned for this song to feature Raekwon and Method Man, but did not because of the leak. Later this was confirmed false.[8] "Legendary" was released on July 19, 2011, on iTunes as the third single from the album.[9] All three singles from the album can be streamed at Royce's website.[10]

The album debuted at number 25 on the Billboard 200 with 16,000 copies sold in its first week released.[11] In its second week, the album sold 4,700 copies to bring in a total of 20,700 copies to date.[12] As of March 20, 2012, the album has sold 43,500 copies in the United States.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
The A.V. Club	(B)[13]
Allmusic	[14]
HipHopDX	[15]
RapReviews	(8/10)[16]
XXL	[17]

Success Is Certain has received general acclaim from music critics.[18] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".[18]

David Jeffries of Allmusic wrote, "Musically, the results are a brighter, tighter, yet more elaborate version of the man's best work, with tracks like "Security" and "Merry Go Round" sounding both flashy and meaty at once."[14] Evan Rytlewski of The A.V. Club gave the album a "B" rating, writing "disorganized as it is, this is the environment he works best in, and Success smartly just lets him do his thing".[13] Meka Udoh of XXL gave the album an "XL" review, writing "maybe influenced by Marshall himself, Royce has learned to channel his loquacious voracity into a controlled rage, and the end result is perhaps his most complete body of work".[17]

Note

• The track 3 "Merry Go Round" is replaced by "I'm Fresh" featuring Mr. Porter on the iTunes album version.

• Success Is Certain at Metacritic

Success Is Certain at AllMusic. Retrieved August 27, 2011.