Tyler, the Creator Opens Up About Outselling DJ Khaled

Tyler, the Creator is speaking out about his chart battle with DJ Khaled.

In May, the Odd Future rapper earned his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with IGOR, which outsold Khaled’s star-studded album Father of Asahd.

IGOR, which was sold with merchandise bundles, moved 165,000 equivalent album units (74,000 in album sales) in its first week, while Father of Asahd sold 136,000 units, of which 34,000 were traditional sales.

Khaled didn’t take kindly to second place. According to reports, he was furious with Billboard and alleges that the chart organization unfairly disqualified more than 100,000 in sales of his album from an energy drink bundle, which cost him the No. 1 spot.

Khaled seemingly took shots at Tyler in a cryptic Instagram post, which he later deleted. “I make albums so people can play it and you actually hear it,” he wrote. “You know, driving your car, you hear another car playing it. You know, go to the barbershop, you hear them playing it. You know, turn the radio on, and you hear them playing it. It’s called great music. It’s called albums that you actually hear the songs. Not no mysterious shit that you never hear it.”

After laughing off Khaled’s comments, Tyler opened up about his chart victory during an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1. “This is no disrespect to Khaled or anyone, but this ni**a had every person in the industry, everyone on that fu**ing album—everyone, everyone—Cardi B, 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Post Malone, Beyoncé and JAY, everyone who sells billions of records,” he said.

“And the fact that I beat him with this that isn’t parallel to all the popping music right now was fu**ing crazy, bro. Are you serious? Like that was insane to me and it’s new to me, bro.”

A proud Tyler added, “It’s work. It’s effort… Whether ni**as like it or not, it’s so much work and detail put into this shit.”