Lil' Kim was mired in a minor controversy this past week when the onetime the Notorious B.I.G. protégé claimed on Twitter that her brand-new mixtape, Black Friday, sold more than 100,000 copies in the first 24 hours of release at a clip of $10 apiece.
The collection, which dropped on Valentine's Day, features the title track and an accompanying video targeting Kim nemesis Nicki Minaj. And the Brooklyn rapper's Black Friday sales figure would have grossed Kim $1 million, a figure many fans online refuted.
Various bloggers disputed the numbers, going as far as to call PayPal (purchases could only be made via the site) after Kim announced she was the highest seller in its history; a PayPal rep told StreetAnthem.com the e-commerce site doesn't track such figures.
Curiously, Kim's tweet about her sales feat appear to have been deleted from her page, but a Lil' Kim fan site still has a screen grab of the post. Kim spoke out on the issue on Thursday and admitted she didn't know the current sales figure. The mixtape isn't available at any online retailers or in digital form.
"No, I actually don't know right now," she told Rap-Up.com about her mixtape sales. "I have a team that kinda checks up on all that. We'll keep you posted."
Kim said the figures could actually be higher that her initial estimate, but rather than celebrate the success of her mixtape — which unlike typically free mixtapes must be purchased and then shipped in CD format — she fired back at her naysayers who suggested she was practicing fuzzy math.
"At the end of the day, you're always going to have your haters," she said. "We need the haters. There was actually a representative at PayPal who basically didn't really confirm or deny it, but also [said] that they're very happy and proud of the success of Lil' Kim. I think numbers in other areas speak for themselves. I mean, why aren't they questioning the 'Black Friday' [video] being at 2.5 [million views] in less than 18 hours? Why aren't they questioning that? What's the difference? How can you add up one thing and not the other? I just feel like people pick and choose the area that they want to attack."
Do you plan to purchase Lil' Kim's Black Friday mixtape? Tell us in the comments!