Rapper Young Thug doesn’t need a whole lot of introduction. But, it turns out, he might need the occasional help getting his albums onto the charts.

Recent audio from the rapper revealed that, when confronted with the news that Gunna’s DS4EVER was coming out at the same time at The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, he spent $50,000 on fake streams in order to boost the album to number one.

“The #1 album you just had right now, I paid for you to have a #1 album,” Young Thug said of Gunna. “You didn’t honestly earn a #1 album over The Weeknd.”

However, Thugger also added he’s not alone in pulling moves like this. For example, he says The Weeknd himself did it, too.

This isn’t that unheard of. Last year, a North Carolina man was charged with fraud after artificially juicing his streaming numbers in order to receive around $10 million in royalties. Add in the fact that multiple other, smaller artists have been caught botting streams, and it’s not too unbelievable to think that a mainstream artist would try their hand at it, too.

So, if you see an artist on Spotify getting a lot of attention and you wonder who’s actually listening, there’s a chance that it really is “no one.”

Young Thug says he allegedly spent $50K on fake streams for Gunna’s 'DS4EVER' for it to debut at #1 over The Weeknd’s 'Dawn FM'

"The #1 album you just had right now, I paid for you to have a #1 album. You didn't honestly earn a #1 album over The Weeknd." pic.twitter.com/sMg6yPHwVM

— Kurrco (@Kurrco) August 31, 2025