French Montana has landed outside of the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 with his new album Mac & Cheese 5, despite early projections to the contrary.
With a No. 14 debut this week, the project moved 34,000 equivalent units – which is more than 20,000 units less than it was expected to do. This is possibly due to a scam he was accused of running with vinyl copies of the album.
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The situation was first called out on Twitter/X last Tuesday (February 27) by popular vinyl collector, Dro. In a long post, he explained that French ran a promotion in January to pre-order $5 vinyl copies of Mac & Cheese 5.
In order to be counted toward first-week sales on Billboard, the vinyls would have to be shipped by the album’s release day, February 23. This is where the alleged scam comes into play, however, as Dro and many who replied to his post had their orders shipped to completely different states. Some also shared photos provided by the shipping company, and the packages appeared to be way too small to contain a vinyl record.
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“Boosted Sales Fraud?” Dro began in his post. “French Montana sold Vinyl Records on his site for $5 preorders back in January. With all the albums needing to be shipped on release date to count towards sales, it seems almost everyone that purchased it has had it ‘delivered’ to a random address. This seems to be a case of fake shipping confirmations in order to boost sales numbers for the album.”
He added: “@FrencHMonTanA if someone on your team wishes to comment on this my DMs are open. But I have received dozens of messages alleging the same. My order was also ‘delivered’ a few states away.”
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It seems that Billboard opted not to count the vinyl sales in the end, which would explain the major drop from Hits Daily Double‘s forecast for a No. 3 debut with approximately 56,000 equivalent units.
HipHopDX has reached out to Billboard for comment but has not received as of press time.
Aside from accusations of sales fraud, French Montana has also received flack for releasing a 126-song version of the project. The Bronx rapper delivered an extended version of MC5 featuring six versions of each song: explicit, sped up, slowed down, instrumental, acapella and clean.
Speaking to TMZ, French ensured fans the cut was “simple science” inspired by Taylor Swift who saw a boom in sales after recreating her old work.
He also credited City Girls’ JT for making her smash hit “Sideways” accessible in multiple formats.
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Despite the jokes made at his expense, the project boasts a series of impressive collaborations with, among others, Kanye West. Other features on Mac & Cheese 5 include Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Lil Baby, JID, Lil Durk, Jeremih, Bryson Tiller and Meek Mill.
