There has been a huge social media outcry surrounding the first week sales of Troy Ave's new album Major without a Deal. Only selling 3,500 units in its first week and 30 physical copies in stores which is stunning with the all star cast featured on the new LP including Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, ASAP Ferg and more.
The world is wondering how or why this happened but we have to look at this from the perspective of the music industry. Ave is still a fairly new artist in the industry and even though he's been off to a fire start since the 2013 release of his first album New York City everyone (the perspective fans) is not familiar with his sound or him as an artist as of yet.
As fans of the music industry (as we all are in some way) we have a tendency to only look at the music business from the "whose popular" perspective to predict the success of artists. However, there is many more sides to consider in this unpredictable business.
Ave's very low album sales can be attributed to inadequate marketing and lack of patience. Ave did not give his music enough time to thrive and establish a solid movement before releasing his latest LP. Even though Ave has been in the league with some of hip hop most prominent stars for quite some time (being a popular force in his home state of New York) he still does not have the major buzz as the stars he has formed relationships with.
There is no doubt that Troy Ave is next up in the music game but it will take more time and more music before he will be able to establish a major buzz that will make him an elite artist with the ability to have a very successful week regarding first week album releases.