Troy Ave had some explaining to do after it was reported his debut album 'Major Without A Deal' only moved 4373 overall units and just 30 physical copies in its first week.
As he quickly pointed out, his album dropped on a Friday, giving it three fewer days to accumulate first week sales. He vowed to give the public the "real numbers" when he got them, and earlier this week he did.
7,708 album sales (480 physical) over what looks like ten days is still pretty poor, and the 10 million streams is unverified and hard to quantify.
Troy has pointed out that as an independent artist he is entitled to a much larger percentage of gross sales than a rapper on a label would get. Still, he had to pay all the impressive features he got on 'Major Without A Deal,' so that's going to cut into the profits.
Despite his lack of a deal, Troy has gotten a lot of breaks.
He made the 2014 Freshman list, and was twice placed on the main stage at Summer Jam before he dropped a debut album which came stocked with star-studded features.
So far his sales haven't justified those honors, no matter how you look at them.