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Photo Credit: 21 Savage\u2019s What Happened to the Streets? cover art by Slawn<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The conversation around streaming integrity and rampant botting<\/a> intensified this week as reports surfaced<\/a> of Spotify allegedly removing 25 million streams from 21 Savage\u2019s latest album, What Happened to the Streets?<\/em> Spotify has yet to acknowledge the adjustment<\/a>\u2014but the change comes amid speculation that bots may have been used to inflate numbers tied to the album.<\/p>\n It\u2019s notable that no formal accusation has been made on either side. But the sudden drop in streams<\/a> appeared on Sunday and immediately sparked speculation across social media. Every song on the album, which dropped in December, has been affected.<\/p>\n Upon its release, What Happened to the Streets?<\/em> debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 and earned 73,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. The album featured an impressive list of collaborators, including Latto, Drake, GloRilla, Metro Boomin, Young Nudy, Lil Baby, and Jawan Harris.<\/p>\n But several artists, including NBA YoungBoy, 6ix9ine, and Fivio Foreign, publicly denounced the statement as dismissive of street culture, rather than a simple remark on perceived loyalty. That escalated the debate into a broad conversation around the role of street narratives in hip-hop, as well as authenticity and the effects of trauma on the creation of art.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, it remains to be seen what Spotify or 21 Savage\u2019s camps will say, if anything, about the streaming adjustment. Regardless, it fans the flames of speculation surrounding the rampant use of botting in streaming spaces and the authenticity of streaming as a metric.<\/p>\n <\/div>\nThe album was already at the center of a cultural debate even before the speculation over its streams. 21 Savage weighed in on mounting tensions between fellow rappers Gunna<\/a> and Young Thug<\/a> shortly after the record\u2019s release, and posted \u201cfuck the streets\u201d on the former Twitter.<\/h4>\n