Tekashi 6ix9ine returned to the spotlight (May 8), with the release of his recent track “Gooba,” although the song made YouTube history as the first Hip-hop song to get 43 million views in 24 hours, it failed to reach the same momentous height of on the Billboard chart after Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande’s new song “Stuck With U” beat it to the number one spot.
It seems 6ix9ine is not very happy with the outcome and alleged that Ariana’s team had purchased thousands of unit of her song with Justin to grantee her number one spot. Justin bieber, Ariana and the Billboard have now responded to his claim.
“I didn’t have a number one for the first five years of my career and it didn’t upset me at all because from the bottom of my heart, music is everything to me,” Ariana wrote in the caption for the Instagram post. “My fans are everything to me. i promise i couldn’t ask for another fucking thing.”
“To anybody that is displeased with their placement on the chart this week or who is spending their time racking their brain thinking of as many ways as they can to discredit hardworking women (and only the women for some reason…..), i ask u to take a moment to humble yourself,” she continued. “Be grateful you’re even here. that people want to listen to u at all. it’s a blessed position to be in.” She added.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAV170sFE_P/?utm_source=ig_embed
“He says his streams don’t count,” Justin Bieber wrote in the IG story post, referring to the Brooklyn rapper, who also said streaming numbers for his song “Gooba” were not being accounted for. “Yes they do but he is counting his global streams and this is a domestic chart so only domestic streams count. 60,000 units came because we don’t disclose our numbers until end of the week. That’s called strategy. He said 30k was bought with 6 credit cards but that is a lie. The rules are clear one credit card can buy max 4 copies.”
“Anything over that the entire amount gets thrown out,” Bieber continued. “Nielson company checks this and found all our sales were legit because our fans are amazing and bought them. Don’t discredit our fan base with false info. This is my song with Ariana Grande and I am honored to work with her to help raise money for a great cause. If you gonna say her name make sure you say mine because it’s our song.”
The Billboard also addressed the rappers claim by explaining how the chart numbers were calculated also detailing what Tekashi claims are discrepancies with his streaming and airplay calculations.
“Overall, ‘Stuck With U’ drew 28.1 million U.S. streams, 26.3 million in radio airplay audience and 108,000 sold in the tracking week,” the article reads. “‘Gooba’ had 55.3 million U.S. streams, 172,000 in radio airplay audience and 24,000 sold.”
The report goes on to debunk 6ix9ine’s claim that Billboard and Nielsen Music allowed Ariana Grande’s team to purchase a significant portion of the song’s sales with “six credit cards.”
“Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data conducts audits on all sales reported with access to purchase-level detail, and works with data partners to recognize excessive bulk purchases and remove those units from the final sales total,” the article continues. “All titles this week, as in every week, were put under the same scrutiny.”