Photo Credit: SiriusXM
A few weeks ago, Jelly Roll said he would “put the music industry on blast” in October, promising to expose slimy behind-the-scenes behavior. This week, the country singer took to ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show to discuss what he calls slimy business practices.
Jelly Roll’s new album Beautifully Broken dropped the same week that Charli XCX dropped a remix album of Brat called It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat. Jelly Roll doesn’t explicitly name Charli XCX, but says, “I know a lot of artists are disconnected from what’s happening in the business. Because I became as an independent artist the same way that y’all became as an independent media show, we’re a little more hands on with what’s happening behind the scenes.”
“So I’m kinda keeping up with this stuff, and my manager just sits me down. He goes, ‘Look man, I didn’t want you to get in a situation where you were aware what was happening when you started getting in these conversations for number one albums because it’s just real dirty business, like old-school dirty business.”
The singer says his team was keeping an eye on chart numbers as he, Charli XCX, and rapper Rod Wave were competing for the top slot on the Billboard 200 charts. “There was an artist where Hits Daily Double projected that they wouldn’t even be within 50-60,000 albums of me and Rod Wave,” Jelly Wave tells the host.
A post from Hits Daily Double highlights the race. “BBR/Republic with Jelly Roll and Atlantic with Charli XCX are fighting fiercely to secure the #1 spot. Each side is making a concerted effort to scrub the other’s claims and get numbers thrown out. Jelly Roll’s Beautifully Broken and Charli XCX’s deluxe expansion of Brat both look to debut in the low 150,000 range.”
“And then Thursday night, before the Friday count ends—40,000 albums drop from a third-party aggregated site. And you’re looking and you’re just like, ‘yo that’s slimy.’”
“Now Luminate, who is in charge of counting record sales, rejected these sales, which is how I ended up with the #1 album, so that’s the truth,” Jelly Roll continues. Charli XCX’s Brat remix album debuted behind both Jelly Roll and Rod Wave’s Last Lap.
“And here’s the real truth, while we’re doing inside baseball—as far as I’m concerned, I wanna congratulate Rod Wave on having the #1 album because he was streamed more than me and the other two artists almost combined in consumption that first week. But we sold more records because we still got a traditional fan base that’ll go to Walmart, Target, you know what I mean? I see so much in it that it made me look at it a bit different. It bummed me out a little bit.”
You can watch the full interview with Jelly Roll below. The comments about chart manipulation behind-the-scenes in the music industry starts around the eight minute mark.