Charlamagne tha God Criticizes DJ Khaled Over Album Bundle Controversy
Written by SOURCE on June 11, 2019
Charlamagne tha God has a message for DJ Khaled: “Knock it off.”
The outspoken radio host criticized Khaled for suggesting he was above album bundling—a tactic many artists have used to increase streaming/sales figures. The DJ/producer reportedly became upset with Billboard after his Father of Asahd album debuted at No. 2 behind Tyler, the Creator‘s IGOR. Khaled’s team claimed Billboard disqualified the sales that came from an energy drink package deal, thus preventing him from taking the No. 1 spot. It’s also important to note that Tyler’s bundles counted toward first-week sales.
Per the New York Times:
[…] Billboard studied the sales data of two new albums: Tyler, the Creator’s IGOR and DJ Khaled’s Father of Asahd. Each had gotten an almost equal number of streams, so the contest for No. 1 largely came down to the validity of their bundles. Tyler offered clothing and even campaign-style lawn signs (“Vote Igor!”), while DJ Khaled’s album was included with sales of energy drinks through an e-commerce site, Shop.com.
The outlet reports that Billboard decided to discount the energy drink bundles because they suspected “some of the marketing by Shop.com and its corporate parent, Market America, had crossed a line by encouraging unauthorized bulk sales.”
Khaled addressed the matter in a recent Instagram post that was captioned: “I’m in the music bizz not bundle bizz.”
Charlamagne caught wind of the post and suggested Khaled was being hypocrite.
“You were trying to sell bundles the first week! What are you talking about?” Charlamagne said about the We the Best boss. “Khaled should be ashamed of himself for acting like this […] If they would’ve counted his bundles and he would’ve debuted at No. 1 his first week, and somebody would’ve called him out for that, then he would’ve been calling them a sore loser.”
Charlamagne continued: “Listen, y’all don’t think its contradictory to say ‘I’m in the music biz, not the bundle biz,’ but complain about your bundles not counting? Am I only the only person that think that just sounds stupid?”
Hear Charlamagne’s full comments above.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Khaled intends to sue Billboard for deciding to discount 100,000 sales of Father of Asahd. A Billboard source told Page Six that the 100,000 figure was inaccurate, but said some of the sales were disqualified due to “strange anomalies in the data.”
