21 Savage says that he didn't use bots to artificially inflate the success of his latest album, What Happened To The Streets. During a recent livestream, DJ Akademiks said that the rapper messaged him to set the record straight. The move came after Spotify allegedly removed 25 million streams from his project. No reason for the adjustment was given, but fans have been spreading the botting accusations online.
"He says, 'Yo, this sh*t is cap.' He said, 'Bro, why the f*ck would I bot 25 million lol.' He says, 'I would just bot 100 million if I was going to do that sh*t,'" Akademiks said. From there, he calculated that 25 million streams would amount to around 20,000 album sales for the Billboard charts.
Fans on social media haven't been buying the explanation. "Which is about the difference in the original first week prediction of around 50k and then where he landed later in the week when that magically changed it," one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Another resurfaced an initial sales projection from Kurrco that predicted the project was on pace to move 53K in its first week of availability. "Yeah okay bro," they wrote.
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21 Savage's "What Happened To The Streets?" Sales
21 Savage dropped What Happened To The Streets? back in December. The album debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 after earning 73,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. It features collaborations with Young Nudy, Latto, Drake, GloRilla, G Herbo, Metro Boomin, Lil Baby, and Jawan Harris.
After sharing the project, he made headlines for remarking "f*ck the streets" in a message to Young Thug and Gunna on social media. Advising them to stop beefing, he wrote: "Yall n***as fix that sh*t. Yall love each other n***a you knew gunna wasn't no gangster when he told the first time and we swept it under the rug for you you know he wasn't tryna leave you to hang n***a f*ck the streets we ain't get sh*t but trauma from that sh*t." The remark went viral and caused tons of debate between rappers like NBA YoungBoy, Fivio Foreign, and more.
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