Hip Hop Singles Digital Sale

It appears album sales seem to be dropping with each passing year in the Hip Hop scene, and rappers seem to be depending more on Singles sale and money from doing shows, so i decided to start updating on singles sales. Rappers release single songs from their albums as stand alone projects, and sell them on I-tunes, Amazon and other portal for downloading music. It seem hip hop listeners would rather buy a single song they like which cost about a dollar and some change, than put up 10 dollars or so for a whole album...i guess that is what it has come to.

Some rappers still sell huge with albums, but most rappers now depend on money from single sales. I can name 10 rappers off the top of my head that have singles that have sold a million copies or more, but have never done that with any of their albums.


With that said, i would like to mention Flo Rida as one of those. This man beats out any and every rapper when it comes to sales in the singles section...even Eminem doen'st come close to this guy. His Low single from 2007 has sold 6,000,000 copies. Virtually all his singles sell over 2 million copies individually...but he has never gone platinum with any of his 3 albums. This week, he is at the top selling spot of Hip Hop singles on the chart- his Wild Ones single, which features Sia sold 152,000 copies, and now totals at 2,286,000.


Pitbull's Back In Time single sold 100,000 copies this week, and now is at a total of 413,000. The smash single from Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz, Mercy sold 62,000 copies this week, and now totals at 606,000. 2 Chainz is up again, this time on his own track, where he features Drake called, No Lie, which sold 48,000, and now totals at 141,000.


Whiz Khalifa's Work Hard, Play Hard track sold 47,000 copies this week, and now is at a total of 336,000. B.O.B's So Good single, which recently went platinum sold 44,000 copies this week, and now is at a total of 1,094,000. Slaughterhouse just dropped the first single off their forth coming second album...the track is titled My Life and it features Cee-Lo Green- it sold 30,000 copies in its first week on I-Tunes. E.40 feat YG, IAmSu and Problem on a track called Function close off the chart, selling 8,100, and now total at 29,000.


Most of the tracks, as i earlier said, are sold for about a dollar, and with all the middle men in the mix, the artist probably get 10 cents out of each download. So, an artist would probably make 50,000 dollars out of a track that sales Gold (500,000 copies). I think that is not bad considering the fact that a lot of artist do that in a couple of weeks with their singles. Nicki Minaj's Starships song is not a rap song, that's why i didn't mention it above, but it sold 123,000 copies this week, and is at a total of 1,930,000, while her whole album (Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded) is at a total of 475,000.


 That is cool for her...that is almost 200,000 dollars off just one song, but at the risk of the whole album, because you can't tell me she didn't lose some of her core hip hop fans by making a song like that. I have no problem with the song, but she definitely wasn't trying to cater for her rap fans...she was trying to reach white teenage girls all around the world.