While it can often seem like fans are the only ones who care about sales numbers and chart placement, sometimes artists do too. There have been plenty of notable moments from artists like DJ Khaled and 6ix9ine who get upset publicly when their music doesn’t hit number one. But this week there’s another artist who feels cheated, Russ. His new album Santiago just hit the Billboard 200 for the first time and it debuted at number 12 with a pretty impressive 42k sold. He even managed to debut 6 spots higher than Quavo’s new album Rocket Power. But because he was initially projected to sell over 50k and debut in the top 10, the “What They Want” rapper feels cheated.
“Billboard & Luminate took away ANOTHER 4,000 of my REAL sales over the weekend making that 10,000 sales total they took away from me while allowing major labels to fake their streams and sales and do monopolistic merch bundles (only major labels are allowed to do merch bundles because the only approved vendor is a major label vendor),” Russ ranted in a recent tweet. He ended his initial statement claiming that the charts don’t matter as much as fan support does. “These numbers and charts are made up. The impact however is not. Shoutout to the fans.”
Read More: Russ Roasts XXL For Forgetting He Performed At The Pyramids
Russ Claims Billboard Slighted Him 10k Sales
This isn’t the only time Russ has taken aim at music industry numbers recently. Earlier this year he tried explaining to his fans how Spotify’s monthly listeners stat is misleading. He called the presentation “a façade” on account of how many monthly listeners are users who only accidentally stumbled onto one song on a playlist and aren’t actually really “listeners.”
It’s easy to see why a debut outside the top 10 would be disappointing for Russ. His only other albums to hit the Billboard 200 have all debuted in the top 10. His albums Zoo and Shake The Snow Globe both hit the top 5. What do you think of Russ calling out Billboard for the allegedly missing sales? Let us know in the comment section below.
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