It’s Deeper Than Rap

Editor’s Note: This is Part II of my previous editorial, “How Important Are First-Week Sales?” This article provides greater insight into how first-week sales are computed and compiled in the streaming era. Because streaming has fundamentally changed the way album sales are calculated, it’s important that we dive deeper into understanding what these numbers really mean.

Rozay and 50 Cent are two of the most engaging and entertaining rap artists on social media. They both clearly understand that content is king. They’re witty, funny, have great comedic timing, and consistently use social media to promote, sell, and forecast products, projects, and brands they own and/or are partnered with. And they both do those things better than most seasoned Hip Hop artists of their status.

Ironically, they’ve used their platforms to insult each other for years. 50 Cent even created the hilarious Pimpin’ Curly character to joss The Boss. And in true Ross fashion, he responded accordingly with just as much vitriol.

And I guess, as long as nobody got hurt (my bad, Gunplay), we, the public, found it all entertaining. For damn near 20 years, off and on, they’ve taken jabs at each other’s art, business decisions, finances, jets, baby mothers—all types of sh!t.

Now today, we find them embroiled in another war of words. This time it has to do with the first-week sales of Rick Ross’ 12th studio album, Set In Stone, released on July 17, 2026.

It’s been reported that Rick Ross sold 20K albums in his first week. However, my research indicates it was more like 17K.

But that’s not the point.

You see, we’re accustomed to thinking of sales as a representation of people. Back in the day, 20,000 albums sold meant approximately twenty thousand individuals (assuming single purchases).

Today, those numbers don’t translate the same because of streaming.

Streaming has complicated many things, including the accurate computation of album sales. I use the word complicated loosely, meaning the masses do not have a thorough understanding of how it computes.

Prior to the creation of Nielsen SoundScan in 1991, the counting of records depended on humans. As one could imagine, those numbers were often inaccurate due to human error.

The creation of SoundScan added barcodes to albums, leading to a far more accurate means of counting sales. Each album sold was scanned, and the sale was reported to Billboard, record labels, radio programmers, promoters, retailers, and distributors—all people within the music industry.

Nowadays, with streaming—created not by music executives, but by tech companies—data is collected in a completely different medium, and that information is used for a much wider range than simply determining the popularity of a project.

Luminate is the company that counts streams and powers the iconic Billboard charts.  Luminate is the company that counts streams and powers the iconic Billboard charts. Today, Luminate operates as an independent joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge.

Jay Penske is a phenomenal businessman. He had several successful businesses before creating Penske Media Corporation, which owns Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and SXSW.

Luminate describes itself as the preeminent entertainment data and insights company, delivering access to essential, objective, and trustworthy information across music, film, and television through data collected from hundreds of verified sources.

Okay… all jargon. I know.

But it gives you a little background.

On your own, you can take a deeper dive into Jay Penske, Luminate, and the Billboard of old.

One of my greatest takeaways is that the Billboard of old—the gold standard of album counting—was led primarily by music people. Luminate, not so.

Which raises questions about the intentionality of the data being collected.

This is no longer just about album sales.

First week or tenth week.

How could it be, when the model of counting album sales through streaming is completely different from the one that existed during the CD era?

Do you know how many streams equate to one album sale?

Do you know how long you have to listen to a song for it to count as a stream?

Do you think every streaming platform calculates album sales the same way?

Do you know the difference between Premium and Ad-Supported streaming?

Did you know downloads are calculated differently as well?

As a matter of fact, technically it’s no longer referred to as an album sale.

The correct terminology is Album Equivalent Unit (AEU).

That’s because today’s “album sales” include Premium Streaming, Ad-Supported Streaming, permanent downloads, and physical album purchases.

How Music Consumption Converts to Album Equivalent Units

Consumer Action	Converts Into
Physical Album Purchase	1 AEU
Digital Album Purchase	1 AEU
10 Permanent Song Downloads	1 AEU
Approximately 1,250 Premium Streams	1 AEU
Approximately 3,750 Ad-Supported Streams	1 AEU

But that’s not even the half.

Premium streaming takes approximately 1,000–1,250 streams to equal one Album Equivalent Unit.

Ad-Supported (free) streaming takes approximately 3,750 streams to equal one Album Equivalent Unit.

A digital album download equals one Album Equivalent Unit.

And here’s the part that surprised me most:

A stream officially counts once someone listens for approximately 30 seconds.

Streaming isn’t just about music.

It’s about the business of collecting data from the listening and engaging audience.

The data is extremely valuable and monetizable.

So, to understand the total number of “first-week sales” being reported to the public, you must first understand streaming.

Twenty thousand copies sold does not equate to twenty thousand people.

Instead, for an artist to accumulate 20,000 Album Equivalent Units, it would likely require hundreds of thousands of people engaging with the music for at least 30 seconds.

Which is a great segue into the current drama between 50 Cent and Rick Ross.

Mr. Jackson is ridiculing The Boss for “only moving 20K.”

Many online have joined in.

By old standards—and the way our brains naturally compute album sales—we’d conclude that only twenty thousand people bought Set In Stone.

But that’s not the case at all.

Rick Ross – Set In Stone (First Week)

Category	Album Equivalent Units
Pure Album Sales	2,096
Track Equivalent Albums	255
Streaming Equivalent Albums	14,837
TOTAL	17,189

Now, if you want to estimate approximately how many people engaged with Rozay’s 12th studio album during its first week, you have to do some math.

Because streaming doesn’t reveal unique listeners—and because many people stream the same album multiple times—we can never determine the exact number of individuals.

However, what we can conclude is that far more than 17,189 people interacted with this project.

Pure Sales + Downloads = 2,351

Streaming = 14,837 Album Equivalent Units

If those streaming units came entirely from Premium Streaming:

14,837 × 1,250 = approximately 18.5 million streams

If they came entirely from Ad-Supported Streaming:

14,837 × 3,750 = approximately 55.6 million streams

Approximate Streaming Breakdown

Streaming Type	Approximate Streams
Premium Streaming	≈18.5 Million
Ad-Supported Streaming	≈55.6 Million

This should put Rick Ross’ first-week numbers into a completely different perspective.

He put out a quality project with videos and visuals to match.

And all of it is streaming.

His back-and-forth with his rap nemesis, 50 Cent, is actually great promotion.

Seventeen thousand Album Equivalent Units—or twenty thousand as he rounded up—isn’t a shabby week at all when you actually understand the math.

Rick Ross told us years ago this was “Deeper Than Rap.”

And it is.

He’s not just selling music and lifestyle.

He’s selling brands and partnerships.

He’s selling products.

And he’s using his God-given gift as an artist to not only release quality music, but also maximize his business acumen.

50 and Rozay are entertaining on social media as they take shots at one another.

And as I’m often reminded…

Everything I see on social media ain’t real.

I don’t think the numbers themselves are skewed.

I think our understanding of the numbers is.

If these numbers are so important to the public, then I’d suggest Luminate provide the complete breakdown—downloads, physical sales, Premium streams, Ad-Supported streams, and total streams.

Because if you were told an album generated 18 million streams during its first week instead of simply saying it “sold 17K,” you might have a completely different perspective.

By definition, a stream is a single instance of a user playing a song or video over the internet in real time without downloading a permanent file.

A stream officially counts once the audio plays for at least 30 seconds.

Perhaps it’s time we stop telling the public only how many Album Equivalent Units an artist accumulated and begin telling them how many times their music was actually streamed, downloaded, and purchased. Eighteen million streams paints a much different picture than “17,189 first-week sales.”

The Dews Perspective by Cornell Dews

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