Billboard Says Jay-Z Album Sales From Samsung Won’t Count

Hip-hop mogul Sean “Jay-Z” Carter is well known for his business acumen as well as the great music he puts out. For his latest album Manga Carta Holy Grail Jay-Z teamed up with Samsung to give Galaxy mobile phone users copies of his album, to the tune of 1 million albums. The new album actually comes out July 7th, but it will go out to 1 million Samsung users on July 4.

That technically means Jay-Z already went platinum before he even released the album, but Billboard won’t honor the sales. In a letter posted on Billboard’s website, editorial director Bill Werde said the Samsung downloads won’t count towards the rap star’s album total because the tech company isn’t actually selling the album to Galaxy users. Werde writes: “The passionate and articulate argument by Jay’s team that something was for sale and Samsung bought it … doesn’t mesh with precedent.”

I.M.