Soundcloud rap is shaping up to be the site of the latest music-biz gold rush. Lil Pump, Lil Skies, and Lil Xan already have major-label deals, and last week Billboard broke the news that Interscope had signed Chicagoland rapper Juice Wrld to a deal allegedly worth $3 million. That dollar amount comes as a lil shock, given that Juice remains fairly unknown and relatively green. He’s been uploading music to Soundcloud for about three years, but as he told rap podcast No Jumper earlier this month, he’s played only a couple shows—and it wasn’t till a year ago that one of his tracks managed to accumulate 10,000 Soundcloud plays.
Juice Wrld’s official video for “All Girls Are the Same” now has more than 3.5 million views, and the track itself has topped 6.4 million Soundcloud plays—it sits at number 12 on the service’s Top 50 chart. The other two tracks on Nothings Different have yet to break 200,000 plays, though—so far it seems like Interscope might have three million eggs in one basket.
