When Charli XCX released her excellent album Kid Earlier this year, she reached a new career high. She’s received critical acclaim, sold out arenas and racked up Grammy nominations, but she’s not necessarily one of the biggest popular pop stars on the scene right now. Kid debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, but did not rise above number three in the United States. Last month, Charli released her remix album Brat and it’s completely different but also still kid. Again, this record was in the conversation to reach number 1, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the Kid remix album, like Kid before that, debuted at number 3. Now the artist who did Reach #1 called for shenanigans about the forces behind Charli’s chart numbers.

Jelly Roll, the former mixtape rapper turned inspiring and inescapable mainstream country star, has been around for a long time, and he’s just having a big moment — much like Charli XCX. This is probably where the similarities between the two artists end. The same week Charli released her Kid remix album, Jelly Roll released their own Beautifully brokenthe continuation of his 2023 breakthrough Whitsitt Chapel. Before the publication of the first week’s figures, observers of the charts of Double clicks daily reported that Jelly and Charli were engaged in a tight battle for first place.

At the end, Beautifully broken won, coming in first place. Florida pain-rap singer Rod Wave, an artist who actually East similar to Jelly Roll in many ways, landed in second place with its album Last round. Last week, Jelly Roll appeared on ESPN Pat McAfee Showand the conversation turned to these numbers from the first week’s charts. Without explicitly calling out Charli Billboard figures, dismissed a bunch of Charli’s imaginary sales. Here’s what Jelly Roll had to say about it:

I won’t say the artist’s name because I know a lot of artists are out of touch with what’s going on in the business. Because I became an independent artist the same way you became an independent media outlet, we’re a little more involved in what’s going on behind the scenes. So I’m kind of on top of things, and my manager just sits me down. He said, “Look, man, I didn’t want you to get into a situation where you knew what was going on when you started getting into these conversations about No. 1 albums because it’s just very dirty business.” , like old-fashioned dirty dealings. »

And there was an artist where Double click daily (sic) predicted they wouldn’t even be within 50 (or) 60,000 albums of me and Rod Wave. And then Thursday evening, before the end of the Friday countdown, 40,000 albums (snaps) – a third-party aggregate site offers it. And you look and you’re just like, “Yo, it’s just… slimy.” » Now Luminate, who is responsible for counting record sales, rejected those sales, which is how I ended up with album #1, so that’s the truth.

And here’s the real truth, while we’re talking baseball: As for me, I want to congratulate Rod Wave on having the #1 album because he was streamed more than me and the other two artists almost combined their consumption. first week. But we sold more records because we still have a traditional fan base that will go to Walmart, Target, you know what I mean? I see so much in it that it made me look at it differently. This disgusted me a little.

omg Jelly Roll lowkey highkey saying brat/charli/charli’s label did shady deals with third parties in order to secure the #1 spot but the sales were rejected because they weren’t legitimate hello??? pic.twitter.com/zGx7Iytc08

— Kaia! (@kaiamal13) November 8, 2024

Given the events of the past week, it’s not that shocking that Jelly Roll (who seems like a lovely person, btw) is more popular than Charli XCX in America. Chart manipulation is bullshit, I guess.