THE NIELSEN MUSIC Report has revealed that hip hop is much more than the fad that it was previously dismissed as for many years.
The report that puts hip hop and R&B under the same category, found that hip hop could make up as much as 25.1% of the music that’s consumed in America, overtaking rock, which accounts for 23% of consumed music.
Forbes have attributed this shift to the rise in usage of streaming services, in which hip hop has been very successful. Makes sense, considering the fact that Jay Z owns one of the world’s major streaming companies (Tidal).
A considerable portion of rock musics listener-ship comes from physical sales, which have been faltering for years now. The total portion of physical sales that rock accounts for is 40%.
It’s clear now just how much people love Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
Kendrick Lamar’s single Humble is close to half a billion plays on Spotify alone, while Drake’s music has been streamed over 10 billion times on Spotify and Apple Music.
That’s not even counting how many people have been listening to physical copies of Drake’s music or blaring his songs off of Youtube at predrinks.
Seven of the ten most popular songs on streaming platforms in 2017 were hip hop and R&B tracks.
It’s the first time since Nielsen started measuring music consumption that rock music has lost its spot in first place. However, despite that, the most popular song of this year is Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You.
It’s still undeniably a great time to be a hip hop or R&B artist though.
