Ja Rule Believes The Numbers Back Up Claim That He’s A Top 50 Rapper

Armon Sadler
·3 min read
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Ja Rule is not afraid to toot his own horn.

The Queens rapper recently spoke about Billboard and VIBE‘s Top 50 Rappers list, and why the numbers back up his claim for deserving to be on it.

“I’m not a hater. Congrats to everyone on the list,” he said during his Thursday (Jan. 18) appearance on The Tamron Hall Show. “[But] these lists, they’re meaningless because music is subjective. You like who you want to like, you know everybody has their favorite artist.”

He then called out Billboard as a cornerstone for crunching the numbers when it comes to Hip-Hop and other genres.

“But my thing was: this is a list comprised by Billboard,” he said. “They do numbers and statistics, if I’m not mistaken. Ok so, that list is impossible to make without Ja Rule being on it — statistically impossible.”

Ja Rule acknowledged that it is difficult to assess rappers on statistics because not all of them perform the same commercially. “There are artists that don’t have number one records, don’t have number one albums,” he said. “I’m not knocking anybody on the list because, like I said, music is subjective. And when it comes to some of the older artists, you kind of got to go by different metrics because they didn’t have the sales. But I said what I said.”

There is some merit to Ja’s argument. Throughout his career, he has sold over 30 million records. He also has been part of multiple Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs: “Always On Time” featuring Ashanti and Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” and “Ain’t It Funny,” both of which he is featured on. In terms of albums, both Pain Is Love and Rule 3:36 peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Overall, he has six albums that have charted in the Top 10 of the long-running chart.

This isn’t the “Always On Time” artist’s first time speaking about the list, which stirred up a bunch of controversy back in February 2023.

“There ain’t 50 rappers dead, alive or waiting to be born better than me… #ICONN #Vibes,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, soon after the list was published. “@billboard congrats to everyone on the list well deserved but check my resume… #ICONN #Vibes.”

The Venni Vetti Vecci artist has been inserting his name into conversations beyond music, as well. Tiger Woods and Nike announced their split after a 27-year relationship, and Rule stepped up to take his place. “Hey Nike if y’all looking for your new golf sponsorship look no further… Exit Tiger Woods Enter Tiger Hood…,” he wrote on X with accompanying videos of himself golfing.

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