French Montana’s ‘Mac & Cheese 5’ Misses Out On Top 10 Debut After Alleged Vinyl Scam

French Montana has landed exterior of the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 along with his new album Mac & Cheese 5, regardless of early projections on the contrary.

With a No. 14 debut this week, the mission moved 34,000 equal items – which is greater than 20,000 items lower than it was anticipated to do. This is presumably on account of a rip-off he was accused of operating with vinyl copies of the album.

The state of affairs was first known as out on Twitter/X final Tuesday (February 27) by standard vinyl collector, Dro. In a protracted submit, he defined that French ran a promotion in January to pre-order $5 vinyl copies of Mac & Cheese 5.

In order to be counted towards first-week gross sales on Billboard, the vinyls must be shipped by the album’s launch day, February 23. This is the place the alleged rip-off comes into play, nonetheless, as Dro and plenty of who replied to his submit had their orders shipped to utterly totally different states. Some additionally shared pictures supplied by the transport firm, and the packages gave the impression to be manner too small to include a vinyl report.

“Boosted Sales Fraud?” Dro started in his submit. “French Montana offered Vinyl Records on his web site for $5 preorders again in January. With all of the albums needing to be shipped on launch date to rely in the direction of gross sales, it appears nearly everybody that bought it has had it ‘delivered’ to a random deal with. This appears to be a case of pretend transport confirmations to be able to enhance gross sales numbers for the album.”

He added: “@FrencHMonTanA if somebody in your staff needs to touch upon this my DMs are open. But I’ve acquired dozens of messages alleging the identical. My order was additionally ‘delivered’ just a few states away.”

It appears that Billboard opted to not rely the vinyl gross sales ultimately, which might clarify the most important drop from Hits Daily Double‘s forecast for a No. 3 debut with roughly 56,000 equal items.

HipHopDX has reached out to Billboard for remark however has not acquired as of press time.

Aside from accusations of gross sales fraud, French Montana has additionally acquired flack for releasing a 126-song model of the mission. The Bronx rapper delivered an prolonged model of MC5 that includes six variations of every tune: specific, sped up, slowed down, instrumental, acapella and clear.

Speaking to TMZ, French ensured followers the minimize was “easy science” impressed by Taylor Swift who noticed a growth in gross sales after recreating her outdated work.

He additionally credited City Girls’ JT for making her smash hit “Sideways” accessible in a number of codecs.

Despite the jokes made at his expense, the mission boasts a sequence of spectacular collaborations with, amongst others, Kanye West. Other options on Mac & Cheese 5 embody Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Lil Baby, JID, Lil Durk, Jeremih, Bryson Tiller and Meek Mill.