Meek Mill Claims Artists’ First-Week Sales Numbers Are Run By Labels: Most Of The Numbers Are Fake

Meek Mill

Meek Mill Claims Artists’ First-Week Sales Numbers Are Run By Labels: Most Of The Numbers Are Fake

Meek Mill is making it known that first-week sales numbers aren’t important!

Rapper Meek Mill recently called out the music industry for highlighting and publicizing first-week album sales numbers. According to the Philly rapper, these reports unfairly hurt the public perception of artists and negatively impact how their labels deal with them.

Multiple rising artists dropped albums last week, including Fivio Foreign’s “B.I.B.L.E.” Coi Leray’s “Trendsetter,” and the joint project from 42 Dugg and EST Gee entitled “Last Ones Left.” Since their release, countless headlines have surfaced regarding first-week sales and streaming numbers for these new albums.

On April 13, Meek Mill took to Twitter to advise artists and fans not to hold too much weight in first-week sales because “labels run that sh*t.” Meek’s Twitter advice started off with criticism toward the emphasis on first-week album sales, which he claims labels “fake” the numbers. He then shifted his attention to letting artists know to focus on their “brand and impact” instead. He wrote,

“We don’t go off first week numbers ….Labels run that sh*t … and most of the numbers be fake … you can clearly see all the artist that’s killing sh*t! Focus on your brand and impact!!” 

In a follow-up tweet, Meek called out record labels for “crashing the rap game” and forcing artists to drop music on Fridays. He tweeted,

“They crashing the rap game out …. that everybody drop on Friday bs …. Wtf is that … why would you want to sell your product on the same day as the competition… for a billboard look? lol what does that do for the artist?” 

In October of last year, Meek released his fifth album entitled “Expensive Pain.”  This past February, the “Going Bad” rapper accused his record label, Atlanta Records, of having “blackballed” his album and blamed them for its poor performance. He also claimed the label was holding his music hostage and that they were preventing him from dropping another project for nine months.

“Expensive Pain” spent its first week at number 3 on the US Billboard 200. By the following week, it had dropped to number 4.

What are your thoughts on Meek Mill’s tweets? Let us know in the comments below!

[Sources: 1, 2]