Following the massive strides that African music’s new wave, Afrobeats has chalked in the last couple of years, growing demand for the genre across the world which is at an all-time high has led to many people streaming songs associated with the trending sound.
On a monthly basis, some of the popular streaming platforms publish the number of streams for most artistes in various genres. Since Afrobeats happens to be an emerging genre with demand from young people, patrons are usually interested in knowing which Afrobeats song is trending globally.
The Afrobeats genre’s popularity has been linked to its very origins – being made up of a fine blend of traditional African music genres such as Highlife, and Fuji, with Western music genres such as hip hop, R&B, and Pop.
The number of streams for the many Nigerian artistes who produce Afrobeats songs is tracked by streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Boomplay, and Audiomack.
International streaming platform, Spotify recently released the top five Nigerian Afrobeats artistes and the number of streams they have received worldwide for the month of September this year.
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Nigerian Afrobeats icon, Rema, known in real life as Divine Ikubor, topped the chart as the most streamed Nigerian act with 33,675,805 streams and 3,231,321 followers on Spotify.
Nigerian-born Afrobeats superstar, Burna Boy, known in real life as Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu MFR, came second for the month of September with 19,529,894 streams and 6,776,742 followers on Spotify. He will be playing at one of the biggest music festivals that celebrates Afrobeats despite his seeming disdain for the genre. The Last Last hitmaker is billed to headline the 2023 AfroNation festival scheduled for December in his home country of Nigeria.
Nigerian female Afrobeats sensation, Tems known in real life as Temilade Openiyi, came third with 13,656,033 streams and 1,209,410 followers on Spotify. Nigerian Afrobeats singer, Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe, popularly known as Ayra Starr came fourth with 11,384,361 streams and 1,913,696 followers on Spotify.
Nigerian singer, songwriter and producer, Chukwuka Chukwuma Ekweani, popularly known as CKay was the fifth most-streamed Nigerian Afrobeats singer with 11,326,452 streams and 1,359,416 followers on Spotify.
These figures are known to change each month depending on the song(s) released in the month and the impact it has on its listeners. Sometimes the compounded streams can easily boost an artiste to be in the top five just with a little effort of dropping a trending song that goes with a particular season or event. As the festive season also draws near, a lot more people are expected to stream their favourite Afrobeats songs while they party.