French Montana and 50 Cent have been trading jabs across social media over the past week. Meanwhile, a viral Twitter thread alleged that Spotify accounts were being hacked to stream Montana’s “Writing on the Wall.” Now, the Bronx rapper is blaming the G-Unit member for the hacking rumors.
Montana responded to a fan connecting the issue to 50 by doubling down on the blame:
He elaborated on the issue in a video posted to Instagram. “Yeah, you sensitive dinosaur. I got all under your skin. Every post on your page is about me,” he said. “When that hate don’t work they start telling lies, baby. Go keep buying my streams and talking ‘bout faking streams. I checked on it. They all coming from New York. I did my homework. Damn, you mad.”
“Stop buying my streams, man. I’m doing numbers,” he continued. “Yo, how you go out your way, and call yourself an artist, though, and buy my streams to make me look bad?”
The Bronx rapper went into even more detail in the caption: “59 HOW YOU STOOP THAT LOW DINOSAUR ..YOU BUY FAKE STREAMS ON MY SONG AND TRY TO USE THAT AGAINST ME. WOW. YOU THAT DESPERATE. I SHOWED PAPER WORK FOR 2MIL NOW YOU GOT NOTHING ON ME, BUT TO STOOP THAT LOW. BULLY DAYS ARE OVER WITH YOU SHOULD USE THAT MONEY FOR YOUR RAP SHOWS DINOSAUR 😭 !”
Meanwhile, the Power star trolled Montana by cross-posting memes across Twitter and Instagram:
Montana appears to be referencing a viral thread by Twitter user @karlamagne, which lays out unverified claims that “Writing On the Wall” has been boosted by illicit streaming activity.
The Twitter user rounded up screenshots of fans claiming that their hacked Spotify accounts played the Cardi B and Post Malone-assisted track without their knowledge.
@karlamagne also alleged that the hacking occurred in late December.
That timeline doesn’t appear to check out with the latest installment of the two rappers' beef, which became a public sparring match around New Year’s Eve.
But they’ve butted heads in the past after the Coke Boys rapper spoke about Fif’s feuds in a 2012 interview, prompting the latter to respond:
French Montana isn’t the first artist to be faced with allegations of fake streaming. After all, J. Cole suggested it’s a common practice on 21 Savage’s “a lot”:
Question
How many faking they streams? (A lot)
Getting they plays from machines? (A lot)
As Genius user @prodbymalc noted, Malone’s label, Republic Records, previously used an unconventional trick to allegedly boost streams for the 21 Savage-assisted “rockstar.” The FADER reported that a three-minute video loop of the chorus—which is now private—notched 41 million views at the time.
In 2018, Variety reported that Tidal was accused of falsifying streams for Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo. The streaming service denied the claims.
MONTANA drew double takes after going gold with 578,000 sold copies—when it was reported that it notched only 24,000 equivalent album units in sales in its first week. Genius previously reported that the disparity between RIAA and Billboard counts comes from Montana’s strategy of including older hits in the tracklist, beefing up the lifetime streaming totals of his RIAA score.
Read all the lyrics to “Writing on the Wall” on Genius now.
