Rapper T-Pain’s new album starts at No. 1

Dranks are on T-Pain today. The Florida-born rapper’s new album, “Epiphany,” was just that to 171,000 fans, whose purchases put the collection at No. 1 on the national sales chart, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures released Wednesday. Powered by the hit single “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” the new album more than tripled first-week sales of his debut CD, “Rapper Ternt Sanga,” in 2005.

At No. 2 was 19-year-old R&B; singer Rihanna, whose “Good Girl Gone Bad” posted 162,000 copies out of the gate, helped along by her No. 1 single “Umbrella.”

A musician older than T-Pain and Rihanna put together, Paul McCartney, entered the chart at No. 3 with “Memory Almost Full,” his reflective and autobiographical new album for the new Starbucks-Concord Music Group label Hear Music. The former Beatle’s latest came up just shy of Rihanna’s album with 161,000 copies.