While quality does trump quantity at the end of the day, music listeners still hold hard numbers in high regard when looking at a project's success. Grammy wins, first week sales, and daily streams are what casual fans feel make or break how good an album is. But DDG can't get on board with the fixation over statistics like these.
Instead, he believes that music should just be enjoyed and if you connect with it, you connect with it. "Nowadays, it’s all about who can get the most numbers and who can get the most streams. How about we start enjoying music for what music is? Art. Last time I checked, when I think of art I never thought of a number," he said on a recent stream, per Complex.
His comments do come with some more context than just being his general thoughts on the music business, though. On Friday, October 10, the content creator and rapper put out his second tape of 2025, moo.
Like his previous release, blame the chat, the Michigan native managed to bring on some big-time guests. Gunna, BIA, and fellow streamer and rising producer PlaqueBoyMax land on the 14-song effort.
But despite that and his large following online, the project only brought in a meager 563,000 first-day streams.
DDG "17 more years"
This caused him to sound off on the price tag debut numbers have in today's music market. "This music sh*t done got so bad that n****s is talking about first-day streams, bro. Come on, bro. Like, Jesus. What has the music industry become? I remember back in the day, it was about music being nostalgic and being a part of a moment in your life. I listen to certain albums and it brings me back to when I was a kid."
His comments caused some folks online to clap back and label DDG as just being upset that moo isn't that good. For example, this one user above wrote, "This is coming from a n**** that be sh*tting on n****s for not being rich enough. Also, the album is a*s cheeks and it isn't art."
DDG responded with, "ur poor bro, who cares" and called moo the best project of the year.
While that's up for debate, what is certain is that it's creating lots of headlines outside of this one. "17 more years," the fourth track on it, finds DDG pleading with Halle Bailey to reconcile at least for the sake their kid, Halo.
"Lawyers gettin’ over on us, watchin' money go to waste / We should all get together on his birthday, light the cake / If we talk, it'll get better, go ahead and drop the case / [...] / Said you want me gone, is that really how you feel? / Might as well get along, we got seventeen more years."
