Russ hopped online to call out Billboard over his recent album release Santiago, that debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
“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),” he wrote. “These numbers and charts are made up.”
The rapper added, “Billboard charts are inflated by fake data which is being verified by only one company, Luminate,” adding that both are “owned by the same company.”
He then listed several media outlets owned by the Luminate.
“One company, PMC [Penske Media Corporation], owns Luminate, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Variety, Vibe, WWD, Hollywood Reporter, Dick Clark Productions, Golden Globe Awards, Academy Of Country Music Awards, American Music Awards, Latin American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Streamy Awards, SXSW, and more.”
“Watching the general public try to figure out why certain streams don’t match the ticket sales is funny,” he added. “It’s not rocket science; use your brain.”
