Gamma teamed up with Kanye West to release his new album Bully earlier this year, and the album is finally out. However, the distributor chose to issue a social media statement refuting reports about the project's first day streams on Spotify. This got fans talking, but the conversation fired up because of a stray shot they took at J. Cole.
As caught by Rap on Instagram, the distributor took to its Instagram page earlier today (Sunday, March 29) to post a Story responding to these streaming reports. Ye's album reportedly amassed 33.2 million streams on Spotify in its first day on the platform. But Gamma claims that this number is higher, specifically responding to chart data's post on the matter on Twitter.
"Since they are giving a partial view, we'll share a more accurate one," the distributor's post read. "BULLY did close to 50M in its first full day at Spotify. That would make it one of the biggest first weeks of the year on Spotify alongside BTS and Harry Styles, and the biggest hip-hop release of the year on Spotify far exceeding J. Cole. "Father" did 4.1M streams on Spotify in its first full day globally."
They also shared a screenshot of an alleged report that claimed almost 112 million streams for Bully in total, as of when they posted it. But it's unclear if this is just for Spotify or across other streaming services.
Either way, they want to set the record straight and refute these reports. For comparison, J. Cole's The Fall-Off reportedly earned around 35 million Spotify streams in its first day on the platform back in February of this year.
Kanye West's J. Cole Disses
For those unaware, Kanye West is not a big J. Cole fan. Ye spent a lot of time dissing him over the past few years. Most recently, he said Cole makes music for virgins in April of last year and expressed how much he despises his music. Maybe that "False Prophets" diss from the Fayetteville MC all those years ago is still a sore spot...
As such, some fans may not help but feel like this "far exceeding" comment is a dig at the Dreamville artist. Still, it's probably just a coincidence, as Cole's new album was very successful. But if Gamma really wanted to put Ye at the top, they would've referenced A$AP Rocky and his Don't Be Dumb album, which got marginally more Spotify streams than The Fall-Off in its first day on the platform.
Then again, the North Carolina lyricist still has love for the Yeezy mogul despite his attacks. So maybe this is just friendly competition...
