To use the standard industry language, there’s been an almighty hoo-ha around the reappearance of a track by artist French Montana on Spotify’s US chart. ‘Writing on the Wall’ features Post Malone, Cardi B and Rvssian, but wasn’t a smash hit when it was originally released last September. Now a dramatic rise up Spotify’s chart, despite no similar bump on Apple Music, and a dash of Twitter conspiracy theories, has sparked a controversy.
Hip-hop outlets The Source and Complex have been explaining the episode, with accusations of fake, paid streams and even account-hacking being slung around, and artist 50 Cent (currently involved in a beef with French Montana) wading in to the argument. In itself, that sparked retaliatory claims from Montana suggesting that it’s 50 Cent who’s buying fake streams for ‘Writing on the Wall’, in an effort to embarrass him. “Go keep buying my streams and talking ‘bout faking streams. I checked on it. They all coming from New York. I did my homework. Damn, you mad. Stop buying my streams, man. I’m doing numbers…”
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