Ive heard countless times since the certification of My Ghetto Report Card that goin gold aint shit.... blah, blah. If you sell 500,000 copies in the US, that means one out every 500 people have purchased a copy of your CD. put that in perspective, its rap music so not alot of people over 40 is likely to be purchasing an album, so knock 45 million people off that list. the twelve and under crowd can be counted out if you have explicit lyrics so kill another 45 mill on that side. that leaves 160 million even in the age range to purchase the music, which im sure over half would never think of buying a rap cd, so now your playing with a rap population of 80 million(MAXIMUM!!!!!!!), which is retardedly high IMO, and if a half mill pick up your cd, 1 out of 160 people in the rap community have purchased your CD, sounds pretty amazing to me. only 92 cd's in music history(100+ years of charting) of ANY GENRE have sold 10 million or more. you can add another 40 that have dropped 8 mill or more. going platinumn has never been easy, especially in hip hop. im willing to bet there aint 500 rap albums all time that have gone gold, so with 40 and short having 4 or 5 a piece that have made it there from a small market like the bay area california, or more impressively for e-40 from a city thats a couple of stoplights long, its simply incredible. so add the successof con-funk-shun and N2Deep, Vallejo may be the music mecca of the world. their underground artist scene is incredible. hell, two of the best spitters to ever touch the mic called vallejo their home. thats shocking, pimps!!!!!!!