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After weak sales figures on his latest LP, 5.0, rapper Nelly is placing part of the blame on his marriage with Motown.

The album, which hit shelves November 16, sold only 63,000 copies. Sadly under par according to the St. Louis rapper who took to Twitter to vent.

“A record deal is a 50/50 partnership! As a artist its your job to provide the record company with music that they (record company) can sell,” Nelly tweeted.

“Thing about the partnership is that n the public eye the responsibility is not 50/50! the artist is always the 1who catches 90% of the blame.”

Nelly also attributes blame to Motown/Universal for undershipping his record, tweeting,

“If u only ship 200 thound [thousand] of an album how many are u f#cking tryen [sic] to sell?? The artist does control that nor does he or she control marketing.”

According to Nelly, the first single off 5.0, “Just a Dream,” has sold almost 2 million digital copies, which adds to his perplexity about the low album sales.

Nelly’s last album Brass Knuckles debuted #3  on Billboard’s Top 200 charts in 2008, moving 83,717 copies during the first week in stores.  As of September 2010, Billboard shows that Brass Knuckles has only moved 223,000 units so far.

In related news, label mate Kanye West sold over 530,000 copies of his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is expected to debut at #1 this week.

Female rapper Nicki Minaj, also on Motown/Universal, moved 400,000 copies of her debut Pink Friday, during her first week.

Both albums were released a week after 5.0.

SOURCE: hiphopwired.com