Episode 3: 30K Streetlights

Independent rapper LaRussell reportedly sold around 30,000 albums directly to fans, an impressive milestone for any independent artist. But when those numbers were submitted to Billboard, the sales reportedly didn’t qualify for the charts due to how the project was marketed.

In this episode, I talk about what this situation reveals about how music charts actually work, including the role of chart tracking by Luminate and the rules around incentivized album sales.

I also share a personal experience as a songwriter on the record “My Love” for R&B artist Shaliek Rivers during his time with Pendulum Records. Despite minimal promotion and internal industry friction, the song still managed to chart—largely because of the relationships behind the scenes.

From independent fan support to radio-driven chart placements, this episode explores the gap between industry recognition and real audience connection.

If fans are willing to show up and support the music, maybe that’s the metric that matters most.

30K Streelights Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1OFpaCqSxJn6jEzW1I8qIN?si=f80df32e6c814af2

Yore on Smith Street is a weekly culture and commentary podcast hosted by Smith Street. Blending current events, pop culture, and storytelling, each episode connects today’s headlines to the deeper narratives behind them — because every moment has a backstory.

https://www.smithstreetsounds.com/

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

Okay, it's episode three. You're on Smith Street. Hey, and guess what? I've come up with a name for the community that I'm building. Are you guys ready? You wanna know? Street lights. Because you guys light up my world. Huh? You get it? You light up the block. The Smith Street lights. Hello, Smith Street Block. I know you get it. Don't act like you don't get it. Alright. So it's gonna be a good one. Got some things to talk about. It's gonna be not as long today, I don't think, unless I get the yap in the way. So here's the deal. Yesterday I saw something that was interesting to me. LaRussell, the rapper LaRussell, has sold 30,000 albums independently, went over to Billboard, and the response was interesting. Basically, they told him that his album sales didn't count. Billboard doesn't count independent album sales that are incentivized, basically. So him running a marketing campaign and having people spend their money on his product doesn't count because of the way he decided to market it, which is very, very interesting to me. There's a lot of things that we're gonna unpack. Okay? So buckle on up. It's gonna be a ride on Smith Street today, it's a bumpy one. So the reason is because the chart numbers are tracked by a company called Luminate, and their rules say sales cannot be incentivized. Now, what is their meaning on incentivized? Meaning fans can't get something extra for buying this album, you know, and that's weird to me. And it poses another question are these companies tracking what fans really like or with their where their hearts are, or are they tracking their rules that they change the goalpost whenever it is convenient for them? Because I got some interesting perspective here. I so boom. Years ago I had an idea that fans should buy into songs. Like if a song is a pie, why should the label get the slices? Only the label, why not let the people who love it invest in it if they want to? You know what I mean? And everybody is able to kind of build something off of what they love. And I mean, eyebrows went up, some people thought it was a great idea, whatever. I didn't know how to implement it. Alright, so years later, and then we're talking like years and years later, Larissa does it, and I'm like, wow, you know, that's amazing. He let his fans participate in the album and supported directly, and the result 30,000 albums sold independently, and that's a huge number for an independent artist. The irony is that the same system that pushes those songs through the industry pipeline can turn around and say fan-driven support doesn't qualify for those charts. And here's where things get funny because I actually have a Billboard chart credit. Um me, right? Okay, for an independent songwriter, no publishing deal, no company backing. I didn't even have a manager at the time. That is not an easy deal, but I wrote a song called My Love for an artist named Shalik Rivers. He was signed to Pendon Records. The owner of that label was Ruben Rodriguez. Rest in peace, Ruben Rodriguez, who was also a radio promoter, which means he had relationships at radio stations. Now, this was gonna be Shalik's second project, so he had a little more control, and I was doing half of the project. Ruben had people that he wanted to do work. Now, after everything was done, they took the songs to radio, and specifically BJ Stone at Sirius XM picked my love as the lead single because that was Ruben Rodriguez's guy. This is what I was told. BJ Stone was the radio person that picked my love to be the lead single. Now, here's the interesting part: there was barely any promotion. The album for the song never came out, and there were tensions behind the scenes, the song still charted. Why relationships? And that experience taught me early that the charts aren't always about the fans or what people wanting to hear. Sometimes it's about who you know. Now, when you have someone like LaRussell sell 30,000 copies directly to fans, we're not talking about streams, we're talking about they bought it. But this song, my love, it just was playing on radio stations, not even major radio stations, it was playing on small radio stations because they did a small push, they played on Sirius and in the outskirt states, not the major cities, but the the smaller cities, and we it charted on billboard, which makes you pose the question. Well, it makes me think, anyway, what are they measuring? Are is is it popularity, is it compliance, is it money, is it relationships who you know? Now, there is a person on Instagram, one of my favorite people on social media right now. Her name is Jane Lee. Let's check out this clip.

Speaker 6:47

So apparently 30,000 fans buying your album doesn't count as demand anymore for the Billboard Charts but spending millions of dollars on campaigns does. Somebody make that make sense.

Speaker 3 6:56

Somebody make it make sense. I don't understand either, Jane. I'm confused, girl. Now I saw Timbaland in the comments, and Timbaland says, nah, that's not how it works, unfortunately. And her response was, I understand how it works. Luminate reports billboard determines rules and regulations. $7.99 is the price requirement because he went live and encouraged people to help him in the 100,000 mark, was what Luminate told Larusso directly that disqualified his numbers. Very interesting. Now, Timbaland says it's the machine system of registration, etc. With the Kanye shrugs, you know the shrugs, the two shrugs? It looks like, oh well, you know, so sad that you didn't get your uh certifications, kind of like, you know, that's the kind of vibe I got from it. I don't know. But yeah, I didn't like that because you would think that Timberland would be championing for people like La Russell, I would think. But you know, shout out to Timberland, he has his perspective and you know his reasons for doing things and why he does them. Who am I to judge? I you know. But the people in the comments are saying that he's part of the problem, and it's giving you part of the problem. So yeah. That's that. That's today's episode. I think I'm going to make another playlist. Today's playlist is going to be inspired by independent artists. We're going to do independent artists, all genres. It's not going to be uh close into one genre. We're just going to do some independent artists. And we, you know, we're going to make a playlist that just promotes independence. That's different um qualities of music will be there, obviously. Some mixes will be better than others, and you know, because different people will have different budgets. But the goal is just to highlight independence. And if you find something that you like, beautiful. Alright? Don't know what I'm gonna name this uh episode 30k. 30k, something about 30k. And um, I guess you know we'll name the the playlist something about 30k and then the big things we'll work it out. I see you guys next time.

Speaker 1 9:39

?

Speaker 2 10:52

S

Speaker 1 11:07