DJ Khaled Is Reportedly Planning a "Monster Lawsuit" Against Billboard

The threatened legal action comes after his album 'Father of Asahd' failed to go to No. 1

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jun 10, 2019

Last week, DJ Khaled reportedly freaked out on his label upon learning his new album Father of Asahd didn't take the top spot on the Billboard chart. Now, the artist is reportedly gearing up to file a "monster lawsuit" against the organization.

As Page Six reports, Khaled claims Billboard allegedly discounted Father of Asahd downloads that were part of a "bundle deal" with an energy drink. The site notes that Billboard had initially agreed to count the bundle deal downloads — amounting to over 100,000 sales units — only to disqualify those sales.

A Billboard source disputed that 100,000 sales were disqualified, but told Page Six an undisclosed number of sales were not counted due to "strange anomalies in the data." The source added the decision to not count the bundle sales was based on chart rules after talks with the DJ/producer's management, Sony and Nielsen.

Last week, Page Six reported Khaled "stormed into [Epic Records] with an entourage" and proceeded to throw "a temper tantrum" when Father of Asahd was projected to come in second place on the chart.

Father of Asahd debuted behind Tyler, the Creator's IGOR on the Billboard 200, effectively snapping Khaled's streak of No. 1 albums that included 2016's Major Key and 2017's Grateful claiming the top spot.

A source told Page Six last week, "Khaled was upset that his label wasn't fighting for him and fighting for those numbers to count, which could have propelled him to No. 1. They don't get it."

Page Six adds that lawyers for Khaled have sent a letter to Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard's senior vice-president of charts and data development.

While Khaled has yet to publicly comment on the reported suit or chart disqualification, a now-deleted Instagram post found him waxing poetic about "albums that you actually hear" and "Not no mysterious shit that you never hear." You can find that archived below.

Latest Coverage