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6ix9ine urges fans to buy new single four times each, following previous chart conspiracy theory

By | Published on Monday 15 June 2020

Tekashi 6ix9ine

Having accused Ariana Grande of cheating her way to number one last month, 6ix9ine has seemingly taken on board her (and collaborator Justin Bieber’s) explanation of how they beat him to the top of the US singles chart. Certainly, he’s now encouraging fans to buy multiple digital and physical copies of his new single with Nicki Minaj, ‘Trollz’. But not so many that they’re not eligible for the Billboard Hot 100.

In May – prior to the publication of the US singles chart that included first week sales for his first release while under house arrest, ‘Gooba’ – 6ix9ine posted an angry video to Instagram, claiming that the chart had been rigged to stop him getting to number one. He made various claims, including that millions of his streams had been unfairly discounted, and that Grande and Bieber had fraudulently submitted thousands of sales of their joint charity single at the last minute to beat him in the chart race.

Billboard responded by denying any such fraud or collusion with other artists, noting various reasons why streaming and sales numbers in the final chart might be different from an unofficial spreadsheet the rapper was taking his information from. Not least, being a US chart, it only counts streams that it can verify happened in the US.

Grande and Bieber also responded, saying that the last minute sales that bumped up their chart position were from a limited edition signed CD single sold through their respective direct-to-fan channels. The CDs were made available only in the US for 24 hours and limited to four per customer, all of which was designed to boost the single’s US chart position. “That’s called strategy”, Bieber noted in his response.

And it was a strategy that worked. It’s also one that 6ix9ine should have been aware of. He’d also released a CD single of ‘Gooba’ 24 hours before the chart sales cut off. Although he hadn’t offered to sign them or limited sales to four per customer. Perhaps his downfall.

This time he’s taking no chances though.

In a new Instagram video yesterday, he told fans: “This is very important. If you can, go purchase ‘Trollz’ on iTunes up to four times. You can purchase, legally, up to four times. If you can. There’s also merch at the 6ix9ine store. But most importantly, you have CDs, vinyl, cassettes etc. You can buy up to four times. That’s the legal amount, up to four times. Again, we are winning by far, but, there is always some bullshit with these people. So, run it up”.

It’s worth noting, for anyone panicking about a cache of ‘Gooba’ CDs they might be sitting on, it is not actually illegal to buy a single more than four times. But Billboard will discount those sales as suspicious. Because who could possibly need to own more than four copies of the same single for any legitimate reason? Four is fine though. One for every CD player in the house.

Also, noting the influence TikTok has on what music is popular these days, 6ix9ine announced a competition for the best video on the social media platform using ‘Trollz’. First prize in this contest is $10,000, so it’s probably worth having a little hop around to it, if you’re so inclined.

Whether all those enthused TikTok-ers will then get busy buying downloads and CDs of his new single, remains to be seen.



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