Do Numbers Lie?

4.14.22

Coi Leray

Last week was a big week for new artists dropping music. Albums, at that. Fivio Foreign and Coi Leray both dropped debut albums, while 42 Dugg and EST Gee released a joint project. Sales numbers have been circulating, and none of them are too high, but who pays attention to those numbers anymore, anyways?

Selling records used to be such a big deal in the music industry when people were going out and buy physicals. Nowadays, it is more difficult to get your numbers high due to streaming services. With streaming services, in order to sell one unit of an album, the album needs 1,500 streams. This is even more difficult to do in todays age, when people really just want singles. They’ll go ahead and download (if even) their favorite singles, in which one song sale equals 175 streams.

According to reports, the album numbers look like Leray is set to bring in 11K units, Fivio Foreign is at 29K units, and Dugg and Gee's project is expected to pull in 3K units. For comparison, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album drove 613,000 unit sales week one, but we were not expecting this from anyone. Even Kanye West sold half of this when releasing Donda at the same time. Still, the numbers are not very high, but is this generation, who listens to these artists, consuming music in a way that pays attention to these numbers?

We ask the question, because of course, Benzino has something to say about his daughter, Coi Leray, and her numbers she put up with her debut album. Personally, I loved Coi’s album. You can see her growth, even just from last year when she was dubbed a XXL Freshman. She sang, she rapped, she had incredible features, and it was overall a good album. Not to mention, Nicki Minaj seemed to have really listened and enjoyed most of the album, even with a few critique/pointer moments.

Benzino allegedly saw a post that suggested Coi’s projected unit sales, and reposted it to his Instagram story with laughing emojis. Basically, trolling his daughter on her level of success from her debut album. Several artists, from Tory Lanez, to Tank, The Game, and more responded to the post on The Shade Room, suggesting that this is no way to treat or speak on your daughter, expressing their shame in him, and giving Coi the power and wishes to keep her head high, as a more positive character in the industry.

Naturally, Benzino used the excuse that “he was hacked,” but he is not fooling anyone with that one, yet again. After all of this chaos, Meek Mill took to Twitter to express his feelings on the industry, yet again. He suggested never to go off of first week album sales, that are ran by the label, and are many times, fake. He says that artists need to build their brand, and think merely of impact. This is exactly what I was referring to when suggesting that this generation consumes things differently. No More Parties is certified diamond, and best believe Coi’s next festival run is going to be bananas. Not to mention, how much of an impact Fivio Foreign has on NYC Drill, and NYC music and general. The team that 42 Dugg and EST Gee has behind them, they will never fail in this industry, and I believe that.

So, the numbers first week may be underwhelming, but do we still care about those? Which was your favorite project from this week?