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The music-industry adage numbers dont lie isnt always true, but it is important.
Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj was dealing with her own numbers woes in a very public fashion.
In July,Queen, her first album in four years, debuted at No.
2 behind Travis ScottsASTROWORLD a big offense for someone who readily uses record sales as a cudgel in feuds.
But two months later, Minaj would be warring with Cardi B instead of Scott.
Nicki went on her Beats 1 radio showto allegethat Cardi built her career of sympathy and payola.
Warring using sales figures is in many ways unique to hip-hop.
But sell a bunch of records and you still owe doughisnt a Mariah Carey linefor a reason.
I think people seeing other peoples success becomes a contagious situation.
1 with a bullet on 1993sThe Predator.
Sales numbers ended up becoming checkpoints in the cultures most pivotal moments.
50 Cent was one of hip-hops highest-selling artists; after the rivalry, hed never go platinum again.
In 2011, Birdman was accused of buying multiple copies of Lil WaynesTha Carter IVto boost his first-week totals.
Althoughhe denied doing so, the plausibility of such a scam is noteworthy in itself.
The album came in just shy of that, with 964,000 copies sold.
Musics streaming era also muddles the veracity of sales numbers.
RIAA certification rules designate 1,500 on-demand audio streams as one album sale, an easily exploitable metric.
Kevin Durant still gets derided for deciding to join a superteam, but a rings a ring.
Still, he understands the fascination: a wins a win even if the numbers may not be legit.
The rappers who dont sell use mind games to say, Well, true hip-hop fans respect my content.
I dont care about the numbers, he says.
You care about the numbers.
So [shut] up.
Youre going to look at whoever sold the most and whoever has the most energy at the moment.
And the best way to look is looking at these SoundScans and these numbers thats really final proof.
Its fucked up how a number makes you not like a song anymore.
