Giving him too much credit

definitely jay z

audience shouldnt care about numbers but

i do find them kind of cool tbh

barter 6 doing 16k had this site in shambles like youve never seen for weeks

Frank sold 400 thousand cock rings

Lmaoo wild sentence 😭🤣

Real one’s inherently don’t give a f*** about no numbers

Love what you love

Probably Diddy / Hov / Biggie flashy suit era

People used to treat sales like a competition for NSYNC vs BSB 25 years ago

your average cat who ain't ever been a nethead never cared and never will.

When artists stopped putting up crazy numbers ironically

Who actually cares about numbers outside of KTT and select circles of Twitter stans tho

I feel like what happened is labels starting cynically appealling to stans (like how labels will run their own artist's "fan pages" now) and that what appears to be this injection of sales talk into music discourse is just that marketing bleeding in.

it was inevitable as music discussion turned into a sport over the last 20ish years, the problem is when people use it as THE measure of quality

They made this s*** an event. It’s gotta be this

I mean sexyy red was put to sleep with Ak in the background…you’d be surprised just how influential everyday struggle and war in Chiraq and his early streams with SoundCloud artists were. He was the go-to and a lot big hiphop related streamers today call him an influence. And Ak always been about numbers

Jay-Z and 50 popularized it big time.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Jay used his sales, charts, and popularity as a major talking point against Nas during the middle of the rap battle with him. And used it to claim that he essentially lost the battle and won the war which many rap fans on forums back then bought into.

And he continued to do so in some songs on his other albums until they made up around 2005.

50 Cent straight up turned sales talk into a major marketing tool in his career.

He clowned Ja for flopping with Blood In My Eye, bragged about GRODT's sales in many interviews, was reciting Soundscan numbers, clowning tons of rapper's album sales, used his popularity as a talking point in his beefs with other rappers, and partook in the sales battle with Ye.

Just look at this s***. You can't tell me this nigga ain't a pioneer of this s***.

Those conversations really only stuck with AAA league artists.

Now every semi-popular artist under the sun is getting their own stat charting social account by rando fans.

I blame Kpop and Pop stans

Actually, scratch that.

LL Cool J belongs in the conversation as well.

When he battled Canibus, that lowkey was a pre-cursor for the "mainstream vs underground" divide in rap.

When LL flipped one of Bis's lyrics and said "99% of your fans don't exist", Canibus got cooked with that one bar and his album ended up bricking and he wounded up becoming a relic worthy of an FD Signifier video essay.

Canibus had the better diss overall but LL's career success compared to Bis's made many niggas side with him and declare him the victor.

And you know whats crazy? Ja Rules Blood in my Eye sold 140,000 first week and hit #6 on billboard which was decent had 50 not made it a talking point.
50 and Hove def responsible for the hyper capitalism in Hip Hop.

Sometimes its cool though because it makes Hip Hop sort of like a sport which no other genre is able to do.

this was kinda cool tho because Ye winning set the tone for a whole generation of new artist like Drake, Cudi, Wale and the backpack/hipster rap. He kinda engineered the masses ear with Graduation and this beef

Yep.

Love both of them but they basically popularized the art of using sales and popularity against other rappers on a major scale.

It also impacted many rap fans online too because I remember Hov and G Unit fans on rap forums constantly bringing up numbers to claim "Gnauze Lost" or discrediting rappers like Jadakiss and Camron.

Hiphop sales were actually down 30% before this “battle”

2015 when bundles and toying with the charts was easily doable

Side note but related: I stand on my prediction that 2025-2026 is gonna see unprecedented sales for an album - 21 level sales. Idk what album idk by whom but I see where this s*** is headed

Bump when correct