Jermaine Dupri Sheds Light On Mariah Carey’s Disappointing Album Sales

Over the past 20 years, Mariah Carey has garnered several Grammy Awards, has sold over 200 million records world wide and has become one of the biggest-selling artists in music history … So why was the singer’s album sales for, Me. I Am Mariah shockingly low?

During Thursday night’s 27th annual ASCAP Rhythm and Soul Awards, HipHollywood caught up with the night’s honoree, Jermaine Dupri to talk about the perceived disappointing album sales. The rapper, who produced the album, told us that it all came down to how the LP was “put out.”

“She wanted to hear the music all at one time, hear it as a body of work. We didn’t leak songs like the way people do it. When you try something new it’s going to be a different thing that happens,” he told us about the album, which is Carey’s lowest total for a non-holiday album since 1991’s Emotions. “People don’t realize what’s going to happen,” he told us.

After the album’s May 23 release, Dupri received hefty backlash from fans, blaming the producer for the disappointing sales. The rapper quickly went on the defense and earlier this month, penned an open letter to fans, writing:

“Okay enough is enough!! I can’t continue to let you think, what you see or don’t see is a result of me not knowing what I’m doing, this is bigger than me and in the music business things don’t go as fast as you would always like them to, if you know my history, you know I want to go down as one of the greatest produces of all times, I want to be mentioned with the greats like berry Gordy and Clive Davis when people talk about putting out artist, so for me,allowing you to believe I don’t care about the promotion of the Mariah record and I don’t see you screaming at me, that this song and that song needs to be a single,goes against everything that I’m about, believe me! everything that you question Will be answered ASAP!!!!”