Spotify responds to Nicki Minaj’s Claims of Unfair Treatment

Spotify responds to Nicki Minaj’s Claims of Unfair Treatment

Spotify, in a statement to Variety, has reacted to Nicki Minaj‘s comments about the company’s unfair treatment to her.

“Spotify supported Nicki Minaj with a Times Square billboard, a host of the largest playlists, New Music Friday and the new music release shelf. Her song ‘Bed’ actually saw an increase based on the promotions put behind the campaign. The company continues to be big fans of Nicki,” a rep told Variety.

Nicki Minaj, who took the number 2 spot on Billboard’s album chart, had called out the company, saying it penalised her for debuting the album on Apple Music.

She had also accused Travis Scott, who took the number 1 spot, of artificially inflating his numbers through ticket bundles.

Minaj also said that a sales bundle of Scott merchandise and concert-ticket access skewed the numbers in his favor, although she used similar tactics in her roll-out. She pointed to an Instagram post by Scott’s girlfriend Kylie Jenner that promoted the bundles and sort of implied that fans could see their baby Stormi on the tour. She also blamed her label, Republic, for not getting involved, claiming it is concerned about retribution against Ariana Grande’s album, which dropped Friday and will see its chart debuts next week.

Billboard had not commented directly on Minaj’s tweetstorm as of Monday morning. Its chart article says Scott earned 205,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 16, according to Nielsen Music, of which a little over 78,000 were from traditional album sales, while Minaj racked up 185,000 equivalent album units earned, of which 78,000 were in traditional album sales. The publication notes: “’Queen,’ like ‘Astroworld,’ saw its sales bolstered by an array of merchandise/album bundles sold via Minaj’s official website. ‘Queen’ also benefits from sales generated by a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer with her upcoming co-headlining tour with Future.”