In celebration of Spotify’s five-year anniversary of its official launch in Africa, the digital music streaming platform has crowned Black Sherif as Ghana’s most streamed musician.
Spotify released comprehensive streaming data from Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana as part of its half-decade report, revealing top performers in Africa. The “Iron Boy” crooner tops Ghana’s charts as the most streamed artist over five years, followed by Nigeria’s Asake and Burna Boy. Ghana’s Sarkodie ranks fourth, with Drake taking fifth place.
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Black Sherif also dominates the most streamed songs category, taking four spots. His songs “Konongo Zongo”, “Oil On My Head”, and “Sacrifice”, alongside Odumodublvck’s “Wotowoto Seasoning” (which features him) made the cut. Asake’s 2023 hit “Lonely at the Top” is the only song to break Sherif’s sequence.
According to Spotify, In Ghana, the average listener is 27 years old, with local language music driving growth. Amapiano leads the streaming surge (+1,504% since ’21), followed by Gospel (+1,160%) and Afrobeats (+1,015%) highliting listeners affinity to homegrown and global sounds.
Black Sherif’s umprecendented dominance on Spotify signals a sonic shift, marking a departure from the era when Nigerian Afrobeat giants dominated Ghanaian music charts.
His record of outstreaming every music act in Ghana since Spotify’s launch, represents a new dispensation where listeners prefer stories that resonate with reality, hustle, perseverance, and the willpower to accomplish great feats. These are themes often preached in Sherif’s records, which seem to be resonating with listeners.
His introspective style, rooted in Ghanaian diction and tone, proves that authentic storytelling can achieve commercial success, even beyond party anthems.