Spotify Rep Responds to Nicki Minaj’s Claims That It Penalized Her

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – A rep for Spotify has responded to Nicki Minaj’s Sunday Twitter barrage about its alleged penalization of her album , which she claims helped deprive her of a No. 1 album, because she’d done a radio show on Apple Music.

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

Spotify wasn’t the only one Minaj named in her Tweetstorm: Travis Scott , whose “Astroworld” was No. 1, his girlfriend Kylie Jenner and others suffered the rapper’s wrath pver her new album “Queen” not topping the album charts and coming in at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. According to the Nielsen Music tally published in Billboard, Scott’s album earned 205,000 equivalent album units while Minaj’s had some 20,000 less, with 185,000.

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.”