Russ has once again taken Hip Hop fans to task, claiming that they focus too much on “numbers” and not enough on artistry.
The 31-year-old MC took to Twitter on Sunday (February 4) to expand on his long-held beliefs about the current state of the music business. Sharing his thoughts in a series of posts, the “Best on Earth” rapper reminded his followers that quality should always come first.
“sales and streams should never count towards awards when everyone in the business knows sales and streams are often times manipulated and faked. what can’t be faked is what you’re actually hearing,” he wrote. “there is no metric outside of what YOU think is the best. the metric for the Grammys is a small group of industry people voting on who THEY think is best. streams aren’t the ONLY factor, nor should they be especially when it’s known that they are often times fake.”
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He continued: “The younger generation has really let numbers dictate what they think is good or not. No original thoughts of their own, just ‘hey look at the numbers, this means it’s the best.’ All while failing to realize that more than ever, numbers are being faked. Group thinkers are running rampant. I encourage everyone to think for themselves and let their own taste influence their opinion, not numbers.”
Russ then went on to say that fans who focus too much on numbers are “lost idiots” and called them his “least favorite fans,” saying they have “mush for brains.”
Check out all his tweets below:
Russ, who has frequently targeted “the industry” before, recently elaborated on how streaming numbers can be manipulated, alleging that that many mainstream artists inflate their numbers to appear more important than they are. The rapper took to Twitter over the fall to joke that he would start pump-faking his streaming numbers, even though his stats are already quite impressive.
“Real shit, I’m bout to start faking my streams like everyone else [laughing face emojis],” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “It’s marketing when you think about it. General person is a sheep.”
He continued: “If you see a song has let’s say 100m streams and you haven’t heard it, you think ‘damn I’m tripping I needa go peep.’ And then the fake streams get you real streams. Such a ridiculous game but f**k it, maybe I’ll film the whole process and drop a doc after.”
He then posted a tweet of his stats, which were nothing short of impressive. Still, the rapper levied some pretty serious allegations against Billboard and Luminate — the companies responsible for overseeing the U.S. music charts — and accused them of cheating him out of thousands of sales for his album, Santiago.
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He had previously made the same claim on social media after it was reported that said project had debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, opening with 42,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. While that figure is a respectable tally for any independent artist, Russ felt it was a little low considering he was projected to crack the Top 10 with over 50,000 units.
