Drake claims Billboard “fixed” the charts after ‘Scorpion’ release
Drake has said that he believes Billboard “fixed” the charts following the success of his album ‘Scorpion’, in 2018.
At the time, the Canadian rapper’s album broke multiple streaming records and he became the first artist to reach over 50 billion streams across music platforms. It also topped the Billboard 200.
Explaining his theory to DJ Akademiks, Drake said that the move was done in an effort to boost other artists.
“I mean, at the end of the day, ever since we were gunning off the charts from ‘Scorpion’, they fixed the charts anyway,” the rapper claimed. “So it is what it is. You know, they had to give other people a fair shot.”
Prior to the week that ‘Scorpion’ was released, Billboard counted 1,500 streams equal to a single album sale.
From the next week, they implemented two different ratios to determine the value of a stream, meaning there was a disparity in the value between a song streamed by a “paying subscriber” to a platform like Apple Music and Spotify versus that of a “free user”.
Billboard is yet to comment on the rapper’s claims and NME has contacted Billboard for comment.
Despite that, Drake’s 2021 album ‘Certified Lover Boy’ still went to the top of the Billboard 200 and his current album with 21 Savage – ‘Her Loss’, has shifted the equivalent of 400,000 album units in its first week since it was released.
Meanwhile, earlier this week Vogue announced they were suing Drake and 21 Savage after sharing a fake cover of the magazine as part of their promotional campaign for their new album.
The pair also promoted a fake NPR Tiny Desk appearance and updated an old Howard Stern interview.
The post Drake claims Billboard “fixed” the charts after ‘Scorpion’ release appeared first on NME.
Damian Jones
NME
