Seriously, who are these people who keep buying these Flo Rida singles?

I checked this site the other day, and I saw that a new Flo Rida song had broken a digital sales record, and I wasnt sure what to think. I had to check to see if it was the very same sales record that had just been broken by the three-headed beast of marginal relevance that is Eminem, Dr. Dre, and 50 Cent, which, for what its worth, had originally been set by Flo Rida, a year or so ago.

As it turns out, it was. Just the other day, that Em, Dre, and Fiddy song sold 418,000 digital downloads in one week, which made it the highest debut on Billboards still relatively new digital sales chart evar, even more so than T.I.s obnoxious Live Your Life, which broke the record back in October, with 335,000 downloads its first week, and Flo Ridas Low, which set the record back at the beginning of 2008.

I wasnt about to spend the time it would take to see how many copies Low sold its first week out, though I see it once sold 467,000 copies in a week, and thats still considered a record. That must have been its very best week. I wonder if Eminem will eventually break that record. Youd think it wouldnt be that difficult, since he already broke the first week sales record, but then Crack a Bottle might not have legs, as they say.

Flo Rida could just as easily end up breaking his own record, since I imagine most people are like me, in that they wouldnt know from Right Round, the new Flo Rida song. Or who knows, maybe Im just behind the curve on this new Flo Rida, as I was with Low. It had already been the most popular song in the country for quite some time before I even heard it - on the white hip-hop station, natch. This despite the fact that I do sorta kinda work in hip-hop journalism. Ha!

I figured Id do the right thing and have a look at Right Round, but I couldnt even find it in this sites Bangers section. To date, Ive yet to actually hear it. I thought I might have heard it in the car the other day on the way home from work, on one of Sirius godawful hip-hop stations, but come to find out it was some new song by 05-era Texas rap also ran Slim Thug, who I guess is mounting a comeback effort, if you will. Is that what hot in the streets, niggas rapping over The Safety Dance and what have you?

All of which begs the question: How in the f**k did this new Flo Rida song manage to become so popular that its selling upwards of half a million copies a week, if Ive never heard of it, and you cant even listen to it on this, the website of the most popular rap magazine evar (for what its worth)?

Selling half a million digital downloads a week might not be preferable to selling that many albums a week, which Flo Rida almost certainly wont be able to do, in that, if an artist only makes a tiny percent of the price of an album, which costs $12 or whatever, you can only imagine what they make from the price of $.99 digital download.

Still, its better than nothing. Especially these days. Lest we forget, that new Cappadonna album only sold as many copies as he bought to try to sell to people who ride in his cab. And I wouldnt be surprised if that doesnt turn out to be this years worst selling rap album. Is there ever gonna be a new Little Brother album, or has that R&B money got too good to Phonte?

There must be an entire community of people who could give a rats ass about anything us bums here on the Internets consider hip-hop. We hardly even know who these people are, and yet, theres obviously enough of them to float an entire industry by themselves. Flo Rida has somehow managed to tap into this community. Does that make him the king of hip-hop in 2009? Cue Flo Rida on the cover of six different issues of XXL in T-minus 10, 9, 8