Alkaline’s Sister And Manager Reacts To Vybz Kartel, Spice’s First Week Album Sales
Alkaline’s ‘Vendetta’ camp has been throwing shade on the deejay’s industry peers after the first week sales of Vybz Kartel and Spice’s latest albums were revealed on Monday. Heading up the “tawcha” are Kereena ‘Kereberry’ Beckford—sister and manager to the ‘Man Himself’—and Jahvel ‘Jahvy Ambassador’ Morrison, a producer closely affiliated with the Dancehall star.
Beckford has apparently been keeping a close watch on the performance of the reigning Queen of Dancehall Spice, and the reputed King Vybz Kartel, who both dropped their albums on August 6.
On Monday, DancehallMag reported that Kartel’s album Born Fi Dis debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart, with pure album sales of 605 copies and 1,290 total units with streaming in its first week, according to data provided by Billboard’s sales tracker MRC Data. Spice’s album, 10, did slightly better when it opened at No. 6 with pure album sales of 676 copies and 1,447 total units with streaming.
Beckford found this somewhat laughable considering that her brother peaked at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart for his sophomore album Top Prize, a week after it was released independently on May 14. During its first week, Top Prize sold more than Kartel and Spice combined with 1,527 copies and 2,957 total units from sales and streams. In addition to that, he also entered the Billboard Current Album Sales chart at No. 56, the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart at No. 19, and the Billboard Emerging Artists chart at No. 37.
Yesterday, the deejay’s music manager-sister took to Instagram and re-shared a Billboard plague for Top Prize which she captioned, “Everything aguh mek sense soon” with several laughing emojis. The line is the opening lyric from Alkaline’s 2017 banger, Fast, where he declared that he was ‘born to do this’ and was ‘the new owner fi di yaad’.
Beckford followed up in another Story post and wrote “Haters looking so pathetic” on a reshared graphic that had laid out Kartel, Spice and Skillibeng’s comparatively poor first week numbers.
“So they call Vybz Kartel and Spice the king and queen of Dancehall, they said Alkaline fall of[f] and Skillibeng is the only one who can take Kartel’s place as the next king of Dancehall,” the graphic began.
The Mr. Universe deejay has been ripping up the airwaves and was touted as the next big thing, however, Skillibeng didn’t enjoy much success with the release of his 21-track album The Prodigy: Ladies Only Edition on May 28. That album sold 25 copies in pure album sales and 300 units in total consumption during its first week.
The reshare continued, “Alkaline then released an album called #TopPrize they said the album flopped cause it sold only 1.5k pure sales the first week and now Vybz Kartel, Skillibeng, and Spice all dropped an album and if you add up all 3 album’s first week sales is not up to Alka’s 1.5k pure sales (laughing faces) #legendary #dettawayorgetaway #vendettaforlife.”
On Monday, producer Jahvy Ambassador also took to his Instagram to hail the Ocean Wave singer. “Doh size up wid e Gad @manhimselff 🏆🎭 na fi say 40 #topprize,” he wrote.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSpGnWfH2Qy/
The Vendetta Boss has been under much scrutiny of late, especially from Dancehall vet Bounty Killer who has publicly labeled his Top Prize album as “Flopprize” and “Flopfries.” The insults have triggered endless debates online between the Warlord, his fanbase and Alkaline’s fans, which is perhaps one of the reasons why Beckford and Jahvy have sounded off on the matter.
With Bounty Killer’s King Of Kingston slated for release this Christmas, he can also expect blowback if his album doesn’t surpass Alkaline’s Top Prize.