DJ Akademiks has very little nice things to say about Atlanta rapper Lil Baby, and he just refuses to give him any sort of grace. Amid meager first-day Spotify streams for his new album FRESH, Akademiks took to his livestream to poke fun at these numbers and roast him some more, adding more fuel to their already fiery feud.
"Men lie, women lie, numbers don't," the commentator and streamer expressed, as caught by Akademiks TV on Twitter. "This boy shouldn't be selling no [100K units]... You're aiming to be around 75-85K [units in your first week], assuming you do this every day... Word of mouth is that it's garbage... Trust me, I'm the numbers guy. He's stronger on Apple, supposedly... The boy is on pace to flop... I know how record labels do. They got seven days, and that window is to fool y'all into thinking it's something it's not..."
Ak's point about Apple Music is important to consider, as per The Neighborhood Talk on IG, FRESH is dominating song charts on the platform in the United States. On the other hand, for many artists out there, selling 75K to 85K units in their first week is quite the impressive achievement. So it just depends on what your standards are and how scrutinizing or skeptical you want to be. But in comparison to Baby's career and his peers, it's clear these numbers aren't meeting the moment.
Lil Baby's New Album
Other Akademiks clips floating around online from this livestream feature more jabs at Baby's sales and the new album FRESH. Overall, he believes his label will try to boost the project's sales to combat these narratives, but again, they might not see it as a negative outcome to begin with depending on how the rest of the week goes.
Elsewhere, Lil Baby is clapping back at critics, including a comical interaction with an Instagram user who called FRESH too "Kidz Boppy." It's clear he's tired of narratives about "falling off," and his fans are helping him out a lot in this regard.
While fans seem to enjoy this album more than Wham's previous efforts, folks like DJ Akademiks will be critical or at least skeptical no matter what, and that's okay. Whether you like Baby or not, these discussions about numbers are moot unless you put them up against a standard. If it's Drake, you may be disappointed. If it's the wider music landscape, the Atlanta MC is still doing quite well for himself, even if he isn't matching previous career highs. Most folks probably land somewhere in the middle, if they even care enough to jump to conclusions.
