Last week it was revealed that Nelly owes a whopping $2 million dollars in back taxes, a debt SPIN estimated would require 287,176,547 streams of "Hot In Herre" to pay off. Twitter took that stat and ran with it, declaring a #HotInHerreStreamingParty where fans did their best to play the song as many times as possible off of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Many screenshots of 10-hour "Hot In Herre" playlists were shared, but it wasn't clear if the movement would actually show a visible spike in sales. Turns out it did, but the charity work fell well short of the mark.
Billboard has reported that streams of "Hot In Herre" increased 90% in the week ending September 13th, peaking at a 219% on the final day. Streams of the song jumped to 714,000, up from the previous week's 376,000. Seeing as the news broke on the 11th, that's not a bad haul.
Unfortunately these numbers will not put a dent in Nelly's debt, especially considering the depressingly large cut of the extremely small sum that must be handed to the label. Maybe a #CountryGrammarBuyingParty is the better solution?
