Chaz Kangas[Update: As a commenter notes, Kreayshawn's physical CD is only available at Hot Topic, which makes her supposed worst-ever sales figures look even better.]
The internet is broken again. It's telling us that first-week sales of Kreayshawn's debut Somethin' 'Bout Kreay — released last week, it moved about 3,900 units — are the weakest ever for a major label release. Thanks for the misinformation everyone, which has come fast and furious, often with the (also bogus) addendum that the previous record was held by Soulja Boy.
See Also:
*Kreayshawn On Her New Album and the Worst Assholes on Twitter
*The Worst Day Of K-Fed's Life
While Soulja Boy's 13,360 first week for The DeAndre Way wasn't a particularly strong, it's not even as bad as Interscope labelmate Nelly Furtado's The Spirit Indestructible, which sold a mere 5,371 units earlier this month. But the artist who bricked the hardest? Let us tell you about a young man named Jesse Camp.
Jesse Camp
The Connecticut-born Camp won MTV's inaugural “Wanna Be a VJ” contest back in 1998, and after a year on the air, he secured an album deal with Hollywood Records for his band Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz.
Their self-titled album — which somehow featured Stevie Nicks — came out on May 25th, 1999, and it made the day's other new releases, by folks including the Insane Clown Posse, Slick Rick and Jordan Knight, look like monster hits. Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz sold a whopping 2,600 copies, failing even to crack the Billboard 200.
To put all of this in perspective, let's consider another artist who's been historically mocked for poor first week-sales: Kevin Federline.
K-Fed's independently-released Playing With Fire sold roughly 6,500 copies after coming out in 2006, debuting at 151 on the Billboard 200. The music industry was already in a tailspin at that point, and it's only gotten worse, which is why Kreayshawn's 3,900 units today lands her at number 112.
Jesse Camp's work, on the other hand, arrived at the industry's absolute peak. The fact that it moved fewer than Kreay's and K-Fed's and didn't chart — even with the support of Hollywood Records, MTV and a promotional tie-in with Best Buy where every first-week copy sold came with limited edition Jesse Camp Post-It Notes (below) — makes it a much bigger dud.
Jesse Camp Post-Its, amidst other promo; Credit: Chaz Kangas
So, what does this mean for Kreayshawn? Probably not much. She claims not to care, and, let's face it, expectations weren't particularly high, especially since her hit “Gucci Gucci” came out 14 months (aka a lifetime) ago. Oh, and those rumors that she pocketed a million for her deal? Hopefully you didn't take those too seriously either.
If we're to learn anything from this, it's that haterade breeds misinformation. Folks like to hate on Kreay just like they enjoy ridiculing Soulja Boy, which is surely why this story spread. We would never encourage music writers to let the facts get in the way of a good post, but when Jesse Camp needs to be in the conversation one should really should make sure he's in the conversation.
Follow us on Twitter @LAWeeklyMusic, and like us at LAWeeklyMusic.
Top Ten Rap Albums For People Who Don't Know Shit About Hip-Hop
Top 60 Worst Lil Wayne Lines on Tha Carter IV
Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums Of All Time
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.