Troy Ave has come under a considerable amount of scrutiny online. The bombastic New York rapper talked a big game before the release of his new album, Major Without a Dealbut early sales reports were grim--a mere 4,500 sales, and only 30 of them in the physical format. However, there were several mitigating factors. For one, Major Without a Deal jumped the gun on the industry-wide shift to Friday release dates that it now scheduled for July. Second, according to the rapper, no physical copies were supposed to be on sale this week, and the ones that did trickle out past the register have been traced to a mom-and-pop shop in the Bronx, for whom the rapper harbors no ill will. Troy stopped by The Breakfast Club this morning (June 15) to address these and other rumors. "You gotta get the slow grind, the Reasonable Doubt grind," he said, "it gon' catch on later." Troy took the Hov comparison a step further quoting "A Million and One Questions," the intro to his 1997 sophomore album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. "Now I understand what Jay Z meant by, 'Can he really match a triple-platinum artist buck-by-buck with only a single going gold?'" he said.  "I can really match a platinum artist buck-by-buck without even a single going gold."

Troy re-affirmed again and again that his independent strategy would pay off over time, hopefully in the form of a joint-venture deal with a major label. On the topic of the jokes precipitated by his low first-week sales, he likened himself to the man who broke the race barrier in Major League Baseball. "I'm like Jackie Robinson and a racist fan, you know, 'Hey, n---er!', whatever." The rapper also claimed that his guest verses (Major Without a Deal sports turns from Cam'ron, Fabolous, Jadakiss, Ty Dolla $ign, 50 Cent and more) all come out of the generosity of the artists' hearts.

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