Spotify has launched a dedicated site called Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams that will track all things related to the genre.
The site will act as a repository for this cultural phenomenon housing text, infographics and visual elements, including Spotify streaming data and results from the Spotify-commissioned April 2023 Afrobeats survey.
The survey, conducted by research firm Kuvora, tracks the rise of Afrobeats and its cultural impact over decades.
The site will be updated on a biweekly basis for the next 8 weeks but will remain active beyond this as an always-on resource, with frequent updates on new Afrobeats moments.
It will also include an interactive experience for fans to discover and connect with new knowledge on Afrobeats.
Afrobeats is one of Africa’s biggest musical exports and is currently taking the world by storm.
On Spotify, the genre has grown by 550% since 2017, and it was streamed more than 13 billion times in 2022, with its leading artists continuing to tick off giant milestones on the global music stage, across live events, awards and streaming.
“There is no doubt that Afrobeats as a genre is here to stay, and will only continue to shatter more ceilings. This year alone, the genre has been played for more than 223 million hours with streams exceeding 7.1 billion on Spotify. We created this site for both old and new fans of the genre, who would like to have a better understanding of how and where this explosive sound came to be,” says Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Spotify’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The five key pillars of Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams include Origins which explores the genres that acted as precursors of Afrobeats as we know it, including Afrobeat, Highlife and Juju among others.
