UPDATE 12/5/18:Billboard has now shared their own statement, confirming an audit by Nielsen music "due to a processing discrepancy." Furthermore, per a separate report from Hits Daily Double, SoundCloud is alleged to have reported late "and the streams that would have gone to 6ix9ine were disallowed." Scott's ASTROWORLD and 6ix9ine's DUMMY BOY are reportedly within "a few hundred" copies of each other.
See original story from 12/4/18 below.
Travis Scott's ASTROWORLD may have not reclaimed the No. 1 spot, after all.
Just a day after the Houston rapper was crowned the leader of the Billboard 200, a rep for Nielsen said they have identified a discrepancy in their initial reporting. In light of the error, the firm reprocessed the figures and found that 6ix9ine's debut album DUMMY BOY was this week's No. 1 album.
"Our team has done a deep dive and found the cause of the initial discrepancy," Drew Bennett at Nielsen wrote in an email obtained by Hits Daily Double. "We've since then reprocessed the jobs necessary and re-finalized the charts. As a result, 6ix9ine's 'Dummy Boy' will be moving to #1... Our team is working quickly to identify the root cause of this discrepancy to ensure that we get it right the first time."
HDD reports Sony will challenge the findings.
Complex has reached out to reps for 6ix9ine, Travis Scott, and Nielsen for comment.
In the days leading up to this week's Billboard 200 chart, there was a lot of speculation about which artist would nab the No. 1 slot. Initial forecasts had ASTROWORLD and DUMMY BOY neck-and-neck, with each expected to garner between 60,000 to 65,000 album equivalent units. The former was predicted to get a boost from the ASTROWORLD: Wish You Were Here Tour, while the latter was receiving a wave of publicity due to 6ix9ine's recent racketeering charges.
Earlier this week, Billboard reported Travis had landed on top with 71,000 album equivalent units; 6ix9ine's project debuted at No. 2 with 66,000 equivalent album units. Billboard's initial report remained posted as of press time.
