Hip-hop’s cultural status was well established before streaming came along, but the new music format has put the afterburners on the genre’s commercial clout.
New research published by British industry body the BPI shows how that’s playing out in the UK. It notes that hip-hop / rap’s share of music consumption for UK singles has grown from 8.1% in 2014 to 22% in 2020, while its share of albums consumption has grown from 2.7% to 12.2% over the same period. 2020 was the the sixth consecutive year of growth in these market shares, with the BPI also keen to point out that British artists accounted for more than a third of this consumption – a blend of sales and streams – last year.
“Tracks by S1mba, AJ Tracey, Dave and Headie One all racked up more than 50 million plays in the UK alone in 2020,” noted the BPI. “All those artists – along with others such as Bugzy Malone, M Huncho and Young T & Bugsey – were among the upper echelon achieving over 100 million UK plays across their catalogues last year.”
Image by Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com
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