Inverview: HipHopNumbers™️ Ben Carter Sits Down

It was 50 Cent. The “How To Rob” rapper put a premium tag on sales and Billboard chart positions, as part of a genius marketing ploy. All great stuff, except fans began to equate sales with quality, at some point. This tactic would even come back to bite Fif, just a few years from its deployment.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and any modern rap fan worth their weight in copper knows first week sales like Warren Buffett knows stocks.

In comes HipHopNumbers: A niche statistical analysis platform dedicated to the genre.

Sure, we have HITS Daily Double and DJ Akademiks to keep the culture abreast of units moved weekly. HHN doesn’t just focus on sales. It separates itself from the pack through its ability to bring life to digits by way of storytelling.

For instance:

The meme above is important for younger patrons who may have not been around for the turn of the century. Here, we learn several things; The staying power of Dr. Dre‘s 2nd LP, its anticipation and how it was received critically at the time. Revisionist history will tell you everyone believed 2001 was the bees knees upon release, but this was not the case.

The biggest takeaway from this bulletin board is the fact that Korn bested Dre in sales, even as he moved 516K units. That tells us Korn were physical copy Gods, rock may have been the more popular genre, and generally artists may have been moving more units back in 1999. CONTEXT! With some digging, you can gather a fuller picture but these stats thrust you down the path.

G-HOLY of G-HOLY.com sat down with HipHopNumbers founder and CEO, Ben Carter of Sydney, Australia for an intriguing interview. A glimpse of the man behind the numbers.

No, he’s not a modern day Rain Man (like I thought). Ben Carter’s love of statistics was actually born out of Hip-Hop. His journey to solve rap music’s biggest mysteries, as he does on Diggin’ In The Digits podcast with Charlie Taylor, has led to ultimately creating a platform for the world to see his process.