Kanye West and Taylor Swift‘s highly publicized rivalry may have cooled over the last few years, but the two music titans are still finding their names intertwined in a competitive manner.
The latest instance of such comes courtesy of recent certification advancements for West at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) – a list of updates that sees him power past his former foe right into the organization’s history books.
Details inside.
The RIAA took to press on Friday (July 17) to announce upgrades to 69 of Kanye’s titles including favorites like ‘Stronger‘ (now 14x Platinum), ‘Heartless‘ (now 14x Platinum), ‘Gold Digger‘ (now 13x Platinum), ‘Mercy‘ (now 8x Platinum), ‘Through the Wire‘ (now 3x Platinum), and many more.
Cumulatively, the massive updates push the 24-time GRAMMY winner’s catalog (singles and albums) sales to 271 million in the United States – making him the first American to ever sell more than 250 million records in the organization’s 72-year history of certifying sales.
In fact, that gargantuan sum puts him in first place for the most records sold of any American artist the RIAA has ever tracked. The previous owner of that title, Swift, sees her collective brigade of hits sit at 247.5 million in the same territory.
When all artists are considered, however, only Canadian hitmaker Drake has sold more (333 million).
As if that’s not enough for West to celebrate, his count of Gold singles now sits at 117 – the most of any artist ever. The previous recordholder, Youngboy Nevever Broke Again (aka NBA Youngboy), is now in second place with 114 plaques of the same tier.
For context, “Platinum” denotes sales equivalence of 1 million in the U.S. while Gold refers to 500,000.
Click here to see the full list of Kanye’s shiny new plaques.
Note: It’s worthy of mention the RIAA only credits certifications to lead acts, so any certified song where West, Swift, Drake, or NBA are listed as features are not included in the counts outlined above.
Bye, TayTay, for now. I say for now because we know that this announcement has angered planet earth’s horde of white girls between the age of 9 and 32, and that they will not let this stand.