SOURCES: Def Jam panicking. Under shipped Luda's album!

Last week, we told you how Ludacris was feeling a bit upset because he felt as though he was being over looked for Kanye's new album "808's & Heartbreak". In his mind, Kanye was getting the huge marketing pushes and Luda was just kind of falling by the way side. Luda was worried for a while about what the numbers would look like being that he was shipping such a few amount of records compared to Ye' but Def Jam was adamant that their numbers were right on.

Not so says one of our sources inside the Def Jam sales team. It seems that Def Jam seemingly underestimated Ludacris' selling power and have under manufactured and under shipped the record resulting in Luda losing sales in several areas of the country. Our source sent us some numbers to prove this. As of 1 PM today, Luda had sold only 5,902 copies of his new album "Theatre of the Mind" with a sell through rate of 87.5%. While Kanye had sold 33,136 copies of 808's & Heartbreak with a sell through rate of 55.0%. So what do these numbers mean? A sell through rate is the percentage of sales for that particular album. If your sell through rate is too high, it shows that you do not have enough product within the stores. If your sell through rate is too low, that means you have TOO MUCH product in the stores and will likely be receiving some returns.

Typically, it is customary to have a sell through rate of 50-60%. That means that the sales department of the label was right on with their projections and correctly shipped the number of albums that was needed. So for Luda, who has an absurd sell through of almost 90%, he does NOT have enough product in stores and is losing sales because of it. Complaints are coming in to the label from fans, retailers and Luda himself about certain areas of the country not having enough copies of the album. It takes some time to manufacture a good amount of the product and it's likely that the product won't reach stores in time for the conclusion of this week because of the holiday.

Luda seemingly had it right from the get go. The label underestimated him and now they also seem to be paying for it.

Why doesn't Luda get his proper shine? Should Luda think about going to another label because of Def Jam's massive screw up?

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