Money Mike wrote about Chris Brown and his claim of being blackballed based on the fact that he walked into a Wal-Mart and didn’t see his new album, Graffiti stocked on the shelves. He went on a tirade through his Twitter account about how the manager of Wal-Mart didn’t know why his album wasn’t stocked and then re-tweeted many responses from fans who talked about their efforts to buy the album.
And then, his Twitter account went poof.
I decided to take this into my own hands and went to my local Wal-Mart to see if Brown’s album was stocked on shelves or if he was indeed being “blackballed”.
Before I decided to look for myself, I asked the Wal-Mart employee if he know about Brown’s claims of being blackballed by the store. I think I made him uncomfortable as his response was that he wasn’t racist and he didn’t know what I was talking about. Hmmm. Maybe he didn’t know the term blackballed.
Since I didn’t get much help from the Wal-Mart employee, I went to the CD racks and looked myself. I glanced at the first rack which had the newest CDs like Alicia Keys, though there was no Robin Thicke to be found so unless he was sold out, he should get on Twitter right now and claim that he was whiteballed, I mean blackballed. And then I looked at the second rack and found Brown’s album. So at least at this Wal-Mart, Chris Brown and his Graffiti were not blackballed.
Chris Brown's Graffiti
Before I left, I wanted to know if the reason that there was a full stack of Brown CDs was because they had just sold a bunch and had to restock the shelves.
I went back to the employee and asked him how many of Brown’s CDs were sold today. Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: How many of Chris Brown’s Graffiti were sold today?
Employee: Well, let me check in the system.
Me: Ok.
Employee: It looks like we sold one CD today.
Me: Only one?
Employee: But somehow two were returned.
Me: So you’re saying that you sold a negative one Chris Brown CD today?
Employee: Yes.
Me: And how many Rihanna CDs?
Employee: Not negative one.
Me: Ok then.
Ok, maybe that conversation never happened, but you know it was believable.
There you have it. Chris Brown isn’t being blackballed. He just can’t sell any albums.
