Tag: Spotify

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Tyla tops Africa’s Spotify monthly listeners chart

South African singer Tyla has become the African artist with the highest number of monthly listeners on Spotify, overtaking Nigerian stars Burna Boy and Tems.

The achievement makes the 22-year-old singer the most-followed African artiste on the streaming platform, showing how quickly she has risen and gained international attention.

Born Tyla Laura Seethal, the Johannesburg-born singer broke into the global spotlight in 2023 with her hit single Water. The song became a viral success across social media platforms, especially TikTok, and helped introduce Tyla to a worldwide audience.

Water went on to chart in several countries and earned Tyla worldwide recognition.

The success of the track marked a turning point in her career, positioning her as one of Africa’s most visible music exports.

Since then, Tyla has released other songs such as Kick to Start, Truth or Dare, and Channel which have helped sustain her momentum and attract new listeners across different markets.

In 2024, Tyla won the Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance with Water, making her one of the youngest African artistes to receive the honour.

Beyond the Grammys, Tyla has also won several international awards. She has won the MTV Video Music Awards, the BET Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards, recognising both her music and her impact as a rising pop figure.

Her growing list of accolades has helped position her as one of the most influential young artistes from Africa.

By surpassing Burna Boy and Tems in monthly listeners, Tyla joins a small group of African artistes whose music consistently attracts a massive global audience.

Burna Boy is known for his dominance and Grammy-winning career, while Tems has also enjoyed international success and also won several music awards, including the Grammys through collaborations and solo releases.

As Tyla’s fan base continues to grow, fans are glued to see more releases, tours and collaborations from her as we approach 2026. (Guardian)

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Spotify music catalogue hacked by piracy activists

Music streaming service Spotify said Monday it had disabled accounts from a piracy activist hacker group that claimed to have “backed up” millions of Spotify’s music files and metadata.

The group Anna’s Archives said in a blog post it had backed up 86 million Spotify tracks and the metadata for 256 million tracks — a process known as “scraping” — in order to start an open “preservation archive” for music.

Anna’s Archives said the 86 million music files represented more than 99.6 percent of Spotify “listens”, while the metadata copies represented 99.9 percent of all tracks on Spotify.

The breach, which has no impact on Spotify users, means that in theory anyone could use the information to build their own free music archive, though in practice they would be swiftly pursued by rights holders.

“Spotify has identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” the company said in a statement sent to AFP.

“We’ve implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behaviour,” it said.

“Since day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy, and we are actively working with our industry partners to protect creators and defend their rights.” (Guardian)

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Burna Boy, Wizkid, Ayra Starr top Spotify’s 2025 Afrobeats list

Spotify has named Afrobeats star, Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, widely known as Burna Boy, as one of the top Afrobeats artists of the year.

The list, unveiled by the streaming service in an Instagram post on Monday, is dominated by Nigerian artists.

Ranked alongside Burna Boy are Divine Ikubor, known as Rema; Balogun Ayodeji, popularly called Wizkid; Ahmed Ololade, Asake, and Ayra Starr, as the only female artist on the latest ranking.

Spotify posted:  “Afrobeats continues to expand its reach, with fans streaming artists such as #heisrema, #wizkidayo, and #burnaboygram from Nigeria to Brazil.

“Check out some of the top songs, artists, and countries fuelling the genre’s discovery and growth globally.”

The platform also unveiled the top Afrobeats songs on Spotify for 2025.

Accordingly, top songs are Santa by Ayra Starr; Rauw Alejandro; and Rvssian; Shake It To The Max (FLY) – Remix by MOLY, Shenseea, Silent Addy, and Skillibeng; Calm Down (with Selena Gomez) by Rema, featuring Selena Gomez, WE PRAY by Burna Boy, Coldplay, Elyanna, Little Simz, and TINT; and People by Libianca.Spotify also said Afrobeats songs were most discovered in 2025 in the US, Brazil, France, the UK, Germany, and Nigeria. (Vanguard)

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Kpop Demon Hunters becomes Netflix’s most viewed film ever

KPop Demon Hunters has climbed “up, up, up” Netflix’s charts to become its most viewed movie ever, the streaming platform says.

Since its release in June, the animated musical has been watched more than 236 million times, overtaking the action comedy Red Notice to take the top spot.

It is the latest in a series of chart-topping achievements by the film, which has become a surprise global hit.

Songs from the movie have also been some of the most streamed online on Spotify, while the track Golden hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month.

Produced by Sony Pictures Animation, Kpop Demon Hunters follows the adventures of fictional K-pop girl band Huntr/x as its three members use their music and fighting skills to protect humans from demons.

It was launched in June with a relatively low-key premiere at Netflix’s Tudum theatre in Los Angeles.

But over the summer the film gained momentum through word of mouth, boosted by viral videos and memes on social media.

Many have praised it for its eye-catching animation and its depiction of both traditional and modern Korean culture.

But the biggest attraction for many has been the movie’s catchy K-pop songs. Some of the soundtrack’s producers and songwriters are K-pop industry veterans who have worked with groups such as BTS and Twice.

Maggie Kang, the Korean-Canadian co-director of the film, previously said that they had wanted the film’s music to be “really incredible and really speak to the K-pop fans and be legitimately fit into the K-pop space”.

Capitalising on the songs’ popularity, Netflix released a sing-along version of Kpop Demon Hunters in cinemas in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand last weekend.

This netted Netflix its first number one film at the US box office. It has since released the sing-along version worldwide on its platform.

Many songs on the soundtrack have entered the top 10 of Spotify’s global chart, with Golden currently still at number one.

That track, along with Your Idol by Saja Boys, the arch enemies of Huntr/x in the film, have at different times topped the US Spotify chart.

This has made Huntr/x and Saja Boys the highest charting female and male K-pop groups in US Spotify history – surpassing real-life K-pop juggernauts BTS and Blackpink.

The Kpop Demon Hunters soundtrack has also become the first to have four simultaneous Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

Talks about a film sequel are reportedly in the early stages. (BBC)