‘GOOBA’, Tekashi 6ix9ine’s first single since his release from prison, landed at number three in this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart. Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s ‘Stuck With U’ reached number one, causing the rapper to fire off a number of posts citing corruption.
“I’ll be real disappointed if Billboard gets paid for number ones,” 6ix9ine said in an Instagram video last week. He then pointed the camera at a chart forecast site, which he claimed gets sent to every label in advance of the final chart announcement.
‘GOOBA’ sits at number two in the pictured chart forecast, while Grande and Bieber are down at number five. But then, “last night ‘Stuck With U’ by Ariana Grande submits 60,000 units out of nowhere,” says 6ix9ine. “Literally you’re manipulating the charts now,” he concludes.
6ix9ine was back on Instagram a couple of days later, claiming 30,000 copies of the Grande/Bieber single were purchased using six credit cards. “@Billboard YOU’RE A LIE AND CORRUPT,” he wrote in the post’s caption.
Billboard has now responded to these accusations in an article titled “How Billboard Came to Its Calculations in This Week’s Race For the Hot 100 No. 1”. They’re obviously taking 6ix9ine’s accusations seriously – after all, he has 20.7m Instagram followers.
The article’s authors explain that the chart forecasting site shown in 6ix9ine’s video has no direct or indirect affiliation with Billboard. “Billboard does not distribute any Hot 100 ranking forecast to labels, management or artists.”
They also address the major jump in sales for ‘Stuck With U’, which caused 6ix9ine to get so fired up. “The sales spike is likely referring to sales on Thursday, May 14—the final day of the tracking week—when signed ‘Stuck With U’ singles were put up for sale in Grande and Bieber’s webstores.”
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And as for six credit cards buying 30,000 copies of ‘Stuck With U’, they had this to say: “[We conduct] audits on all sales reported with access to purchase-level detail, and works with data partners to recognize excessive bulk purchases and remove those units from the final sales total. All titles this week, as in every week, were put under the same scrutiny.”
Check out ‘Stuck With U’ by Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber:
