Russ Claims All Major Labels Fake Streams

Russ is claiming that his album streams have been deliberately undercounted and that main labels pay for his or her artists streams to be boosted.

“It’s a real thing,” Russ stated. “Here’s the deal, when you talk to these people—’cause I’ve talked to these people, ’cause I’ve been like, ‘What is this? How are y’all doing this?’ They never disclose the mechanics of how they actually fake the streams. There’s like, you know, rumors of streaming farms or [they’re] delving out f-cking computers in third-world countries and hacking the backend to make it look like it’s an IP from the U.S. All this nutty sh-t. But the reality is the labels are spending money and you know, devil’s advocate, they’re treating it like a marketing expense. Because, in a sense, it almost is.”

Russ talks in regards to the labels faking streams for artists pic.twitter.com/kvyG1kOmol

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In response to Russ, labels have given up on the old-fashioned means of correctly selling artists and are selecting to cheat their strategy to success as an alternative.

“They’re not doing it with like up-and-coming artists who you wouldn’t believe it. Let’s say your song has 500 million streams, organically. But let’s say with fake streams now you’re at 900 million. No one’s gonna sit there and be like, ‘This is more like a 500 million-stream song.’ They’re not doing it to the dude across the street and giving him a billion streams. They’re doing it to people who really can get half a billion, but let’s just pump it to get 900 million.”

Russ’ album  Santiago debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, opening with 42,000 album-equivalent items in its first week. The rapper has at all times maintained that he was cheated.

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