Travis Scott‘s Days Before Rodeo re-release did massive numbers, hauling in 361,000 equivalent album units in its first week. However, the tally was only good enough for the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 chart. The No. 1 spot went to Sabrina Capenter’s Short n’ Sweet album, which beat out La Flame by the slimmest of margins, roughly 600 copies. The close race has the rapper’s team questioning the integrity of the unit counting service, Luminate.
Travis Scott’s Team Calls Out Luminate
Clearly aiming for a No. 1 record, as evidenced in Travis dropping six Days Before Rodeo deluxe albums on the last day on Aug. 29, the Houston rapper and his team were clearly disappointed with coming in second. However, the disappointment has turned into allegations of nefarious number crunching, which Travis’ team claims did not count 1,300 units.
“This was never about Travis versus Sabrina—it’s about the integrity of the process and the questionable tactics used in U.S. charting,” a rep for Travis Scott told Rolling Stone in a letter on Sept. 6. “This could happen to any artist.”
“With a race so close—within 1k units—we implore the organization tasked with fairly and transparently reporting data to give one final consideration to this set of facts and reconsider your position on counting the verified 1,291 units,” the letter continues.
The letter goes on the claim Travis’ team reached out to Luminate, the company from which the Billboard charts get their sales and streaming data, once they saw the numbers were not being counted, but Luminate, “did not respond nor acknowledge receipt of data.”
Travis’ team also questioned Luminate’s “indie retail ‘weighting,'” and accused the company of having a conflict of interest, reporting that one of their employees formerly worked at Sabrina Carpenter’s label Island Records.
A representative for Luminate has released the following statement to XXL on the matter: “We are confident that our numbers are correct in accordance with our processes and methodology.”
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Sabrina Carpenter Took Sales Battle With Travis Personally
Sabrina Carpenter was well aware of her sales battle with Travis Scott. On the final day that sales numbers would be counted for the week, following Travis’ last-ditch deluxe offering effort, the pop star tweeted, “This one’s for Nicki.” The post is a reference to Travis’ Astroworld album stopping Nicki Minaj’s Queen LP from debuting No. 1 in 2018. Nicki lambasted Travis on social media after coming in second and accused him of selling merch and bundle packages to unfairly boost his sales.
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XXL has reached Travis Scott’s team for comment.
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La Flame’s fan base is ready to rage at a moment’s notice.