J. Cole has taken The Fall-Off out for what’s been dubbed a “trunk sale tour,” giving fans a truly unique opportunity to get in some face time with the North Carolina rapper while also picking up a physical copy of his latest album.
“I don’t know where we ‘bout to drive to, but catch me outside!” Cole said in an X post shared on Feb. 7, one day after the long-teased album’s release. “Cop a CD from me or just show love. I truly appreciate all the love and the reaction to the music.”
For some, Cole’s “trunk sale tour” has led to questions about whether these sales will ultimately count toward stats that influence the charts, namely Billboard. While Billboard makes the final call when it comes to eligibility and rankings, data for its weekly charts is compiled by Luminate, including sales.
This charts legend published by Billboard states that data for its sales charts, including “all album charts,” is compiled by Luminate “from a universe of retailers that represents more than 90 percent of the U.S. music retail market.” Music stores, direct-to-consumer transactions, and online sales (both physical copies and digital downloads) are all included in the sample.
“The Luminate system utilizes that same point-of-sale that music merchants use to track their inventory, so an itemized receipt from one’s last visit to a music retailer essentially doubles as a ballot cast for our charts,” Billboard adds.
The Billboard 200 albums chart—which, like the Hot 100 songs chart, is a longstanding industry standard—pulls from multiple pools of data to arrive at its final rankings each week. Keith Caulfield, Billboard’s managing director of charts and data operations, spoke at length about this process in a recent interview.
“It’s straight albums sales (like pure physical and digital downloads, CDs, vinyl, cassettes); streams of songs from those albums; and then purchases of tracks from the albums,” Caulfield said in October of last year.
So, what does this all mean for Cole? A definitive answer on whether his trunk sales will count toward the charts remains elusive for now. In theory, as fans have speculated on social media in recent days, the rapper and his team may have arranged for this unique, in-person selling process to be tied to a Billboard-sanctioned retailer. However, this remains unconfirmed for now.
Cole was spotted in footage using a POS system for the trunk sale tour, though, again, any chatter on whether these particular sales will count toward Billboard charts remains mere speculation for now.
One thing is certain, though: Photos you may have seen circulating on social media purporting that Cole was selling CDs for $1 are indeed fake as hell.
Complex has reached out to Billboard reps for comment. This story may be updated.
As of Feb. 10, Hits Daily Double was projecting a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart for Cole’s The Fall-Off. The projections place the final number in the 300,000 units range. Final, official numbers are still to come.