Thanks to his current smashing single, "If I

Ruled the

World (Imagine That)" (a duet with Lauryn Hill of the Fugees), Nas' just

released sophomore effort It Was Written has entered the

Billboard Top 200 at #1, knocking aside Metallica's Load, which

has ruled for the past four weeks. The Nas album sold a very healthy 269,000

copies during its first week in the stores, according to Reuters. The

Metallica album, which has sold nearly 1.5 million copies during the past five

weeks, sold 158,000 copies during the past week. Metallica's previous release,

Metallica, sold nine million copies in the U.S.