Forbes published an interesting article breaking down why Lil Wayne outsold Kanye and Jay Z’s critically-acclaimed album Watch The Throne. Wayne topped the charts this week with his fourth studio album Carter IV which scanned 940,000 copies.
Forbes theorized that the combined egos of Jay Z and Kanye West caused them to lose touch with their fanbase — a problem that Weezy doesn’t seem to have. In addition to that, Kanye and Jay Z’s ill-advised strategy of releasing the album first to iTunes might have hurt their sales:
Carter IV. Jay-Z and Kanye pursued a complicated release strategy that included exclusive windows with Apple’s iTunes and BestBuy, in part to safeguard against the possibility of a leak (and angered some retailers in the process). The Young Money/Cash Money team did nothing of the sort, and didn’t expend much energy on security, either.
Entertainment attorney Bernie Resnick told Forbes that the artists’ personalites also played a part:
“The potential for negative perception of an artist is certainly part of the sales equation,” he says. “I think that people perceive Wayne as a fun guy to be around, and perhaps he takes himself a little less seriously than the Throne guys.”
When asked about the blog rumors accusing him of spending a few milli buying mass quantities of his artist’s albums, Young Money CEO Bryan “Birdman” Williams said, “I don’t know where that came from, I ain’t buy no copies,” he says. “No indeed, man, ain’t no way in the world, it’s impossible. Why would I do that? We got this money, and this money here come hard.”
But it’s hard to ignore Birdman’s constant bragging about dropping millions on cars and gambling.
Although Birdman, aka Baby, suggested that hard work helped Lil Wayne reach the almost platinum mark in one week, he admitted he gave his artist a little boost.
“I always support my brand, our brand,” he says. “So whenever we have anything out, I buy myself a couple albums for the homies, maybe two or three for myself.”
