Russ has never been shy about expressing his disapproval of the streaming system and its supposed negative impact on the music industry. The independent artist has taken to his social media account numerous times to air his views on the topic, sometimes using his success to buttress his points.
On April 4, 2025, Russ took to his official X account, formerly Twitter, to reply to a post made by @chartdata, which read:
“Spotify has removed notable streaming volume from tracks across genres for the third month in a row:
February 2025
March 2025
April 2025”
Russ replied, tweeting:
“Spotify is removing stream counts from big artists who are faking their streams but won’t release the names of said artists lmao yall (the artists and labels doing this) are losers.”
Russ calling out fake streams in 2024
Russ’s recent tweet continues everything he said about fake stream numbers in 2024. Following Drake’s petition against Spotify and UMG for allegedly artificially increasing Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us streams, Russ aired his opinion on the topic.
In a tweet he made on December 20, 2024, the Atlanta MC said:
“Disclaimer: I love Spotify and am grateful for the platform that has connected my music with millions of fans worldwide and this isn’t about any label or artist in particular, moreso just the system,” he said before revealing his thoughts.
“Spotify knows who’s faking their streams lol however, they’re not gonna ever (imo) publicly expose any major labels due to potential consequences. Major labels could retaliate by pulling their top artists music from Spotify. That would obviously diminish Spotify’s value and attractiveness to subscribers.”
“Spotify just punishes them behind the scenes (removes fake streams and removes the song from playlists) because they prioritize (makes sense) maintaining their access to major label content over publicly confronting stream manipulation, which essentially makes them a “hostage” of the major labels. Basically Spotify publicly outing major labels is a lose lose for everyone involved,” he added.
Replying to his tweet, Russ states that Spotify is a victim, as are affected musical artists who don’t buy streams.
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“I know everyone loves to hate rich companies or rich anything but tbh in this situation Spotify is lowkey the victim bein held hostage by major labels.”
Further back in June of the same year, the Losing Contro crooner had a little back-and-forth with a fan who accused him of lying about selling out arenas. Following his performance at Kia Forum in Inglewood, Los Angeles, Russ shared a video of himself performing to a packed crowd with the caption:
“SOLD OUT THE FORUM IN LA LAST NIGHT real life fans.”
In response, a fan shared a photo of the rapper’s concert where a part of the venue was looking relatively empty with the caption:
“Stop lying bro ..we was there..it looks packed in this video because of the angle you recorded.”
Russ replied to the ‘fan’ in a biting tweet:
“I’ll break this down for you since you’re an idiot. You can only sell a certain amount of tickets on the floor because of fire hazard,” he said.
“Some artists put seats on the floor to make it look more full
I don’t, cuz I like for the floor to be turnt so everyone crams to the front hence the space at the back
Phoenix & LA both sold out. How you hatin and a fan. What a fucking loser lmao,” the rapper added.
Following this tweet, Russ turned his attention to the streaming problem. He tweeted:
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“Don’t be mad at me selling out arenas cuz your fav can’t…yall start tryna make excuses and do all sorts of mental gymnastics in an attempt to figure out the disconnect. They are faking their streams which is why the ticket sales don’t match the streams. Simple. But stay out my mentions with the stupidity.”
“I don’t even like doin all the rah rah puff my chest out talk anymore tbh cuz I’ve learned that time passing and outlasting everyone tends to do the trick but every once in a while someone just says something too dumb for me to ignore. Maybe another year of therapy and I’ll be there,” the independent artist said in another tweet.
Russ’s commentary on this topic highlights the growing speculations about stream farming in the music industry.
Edited by Tanisha Aggarwal
