Earlier this week, the number one song on SoundCloud's charts was "Bands," a new track from buzzing Illinois rapper Comethazine.
At first, it didn't seem that unusual. Comethazine has been gaining a lot of momentum lately with songs like "Piped Up" and he recently signed a deal with Alamo Records. As some people started to notice, though, "Bands" already had millions more plays than any of the rest of his songs, after only 10 days of its release. On Thursday, some Reddit users did some digging and noticed that a swap had occurred.
A since-deleted SoundCloud account that some people are saying was once labeled as "SoundClout" had previously been hosting YBN Nahmir's viral single "Bounce Out With That." After that track accumulated millions of plays and climbed to the top of the charts, the account took advantage of SoundCloud's option to substitute new audio files at any time. So, following a quick swap, Comethazine's "Bands" appeared to have millions of plays and sat atop SoundCloud's charts. Eventually, people started to notice and the song was taken down. If you click on the previous link, SoundCloud now takes you to a page that says, "This track was not found. Maybe it has been removed."
P&P reached out to Comethazine's representatives at Alamo Records for clarification on the situation. Alamo's Chad Carrington told us, "I wish we could take credit for this because it got Co a lot of looks but we think this was just the case of a fan that really wanted Co to get plays by anyway possible. We're appreciative of the look, Baw$kee coming soon." We also contacted YBN Nahmir's representatives but did not immediately receive comment.
We'll probably never know the full details about what all went on here, but we have to admit it was pretty clever—and it brought attention to an exciting new artist. We imagine more than a few new fans were introduced to his music when he was on top of SoundCloud's charts and ended up liking what they heard. The music industry has caught up to the ways of the internet in a lot of aspects recently, but people will always find new methods of hustling and getting music to the masses. I guess I just played into the trap by writing this article, too. Oh well. "Bands" is cool. Listen below.
