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J. Cole Takes Trunk-Sale Tour to New York, Extending ‘The Fall-Off’ Rollout

The direct-to-fan rollout raises questions about whether in-person CD purchases will count toward Billboard tallies.

Overview

  • Cole announced New York City as the next stop in a Feb. 13 tweet, following a week of surprise pop-ups along the East Coast.
  • Recent stops included Howard and Hampton universities and a Silver Spring/DC meetup, where he invited select fans into his Honda Civic to listen to the album.
  • Footage shows a point-of-sale device used during sales, but Billboard and Luminate have not confirmed whether these transactions will be eligible for chart counting.
  • Industry projections point to a No. 1 Billboard 200 debut in the roughly 300,000-unit range, and widely shared images claiming $1 CD prices were debunked.
  • The grassroots push has featured crowd-control coordination at campus stops, and it continues as a Cam’ron royalty lawsuit against Cole remains unresolved.