(January 20, 2026) — When I first saw the recent Forbes headline “Nicki Minaj’s Song Hits No. 1 Thanks To A 44,000% Sales Spike,” I admittedly did a double take before finally taking the clickbait and reading the article.
“44,000%? Of what number?!” I wondered incredulously.
Turns out that number was “fewer than ten,” according to Forbes. When doing the math, it actually works out to fewer than three. As in, she’d sold just two downloads of the track “My Life” (from her Pink Friday 2 album) the week prior. That number rose to 900 clicks — accounting for the 44,250% “spike” — during the tracking period in question, enough for ‘My Life’ to top Billboard’s Rap Digital Song Sales chart — a ranking that measures paid download purchases of rap songs only..
According to the Forbes article, Nicki’s recent alignment with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement (she actually referred to Trump as “handsome”) and Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — while called out by some of her fans — has not led to a complete abandonment.
That may be true, but having 900 people across 50 states — or roughly a few hundred in the biggest MAGA strongholds and about ten in each of the rest — isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of the rapper, and far fewer than the more than 130,000 people who signed a petition calling for the Trinidadian recording artist’s deportation earlier this month. Minaj faces even more scrutiny now after a homophobic exchange with openly gay ex-CNN host Don Lemon (she called him a “c**ksucker” in an X rant on Jan. 19).
But the headlines generated by the dubious No. 1 achievement — especially with a seemingly reputable publication like Forbes — will almost certainly be enough to make Nicki feel temporarily vindicated while her most loyal Barbz notch this as another feather in her — and, weirdly, their — caps.
Minaj has topped the Rap Digital Song Sales chart many times over her career — 26 times, according to Forbes — including when it actually mattered. When the “Starships” hitmaker first emerged on the scene in 2009, digital downloads were the primary means of music consumption — thanks to Apple’s iTunes Store and other outlets — where songs couldn’t top Billboard’s various digital sales charts without selling tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of copies in a given week.
But, thanks to streaming, those days are long gone. Today a tune can easily top the all-genre digital sales chart by selling between five and ten thousand downloads on average. Narrow that down to the very niche chart that only includes rap, and those sales numbers dwindle even further. Minaj topping the latter ranking by selling 900 copies should be a laugher to anyone paying attention to the charts — and even those who don’t.
But Forbes thought it worthy of sub-headlines like “‘My Life’ Sees Its Sales Explode” and “‘Pink Friday 2’ Album Track Turns Into Surprise Hit.” (Emphasis added, I’ll admit.)
For research purposes, when imbued with the knowledge that we’re talking about 900 copies here (in my incredulous Allen Iverson “practice!?” voice), I asked my AI companion, “Is Forbes Still Considered a Credible News Source?” Here was its response:
“Forbes is generally considered a reputable source for business and finance news, known for its lists and global reach, but its reliability varies across content types, with its open contributor network often criticized for containing sponsored or low-quality posts, though its core editorial team follows strict standards, and its bias is rated as center. It’s reliable for its established journalistic pieces and financial data but requires reader discernment for its vast array of contributor content…”
Welp, it must have been that “open contributor network” that took the time to write the celebratory Minaj article.
And welcome to your discernment.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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