Grace Ashiru
The global popularity of Afrobeats, a prominent African music genre, continues to soar.
A recent report from Spotify, the popular music streaming service, revealed that in 2022 alone, the Afrobeat genre received over 13 billion streams, a significant surge compared to the 2 billion streams in 2017. The momentum carries into 2023, with Afrobeats amassing over 7.1 billion streams and over 223 million hours of playtime on Spotify alone.
Boomplay, the music streaming platform focused on Africa, has joined forces with TikTok, the global short-form video platform, to amplify the ever-increasing popularity of Afrobeat songs.
This strategic collaboration aims to boost trending content on both platforms by curating mutual playlists and facilitating content discovery. With this partnership, Boomplay users will access a specially curated playlist featuring TikTok’s most popular sounds, labelled as “TikTokPicks”, on the Boomplay platform.
The partnership between Boomplay and TikTok is poised for remarkable success, considering both platforms’ vast and active user bases. Boomplay’s impressive 75 million active users, as reported on the company’s website, complements TikTok’s massive user base of 1.6 billion users, as stated by Business of Apps.
The core vision behind the collaboration of Boomplay and TikTok is to blend the worlds of music and creativity, uniting artists, creators, and fans from both platforms. Through the sharing and promotion of carefully curated playlists, the aim is to introduce infectious rhythms, captivating dance moves, and profound storytelling of African music to a broader global audience.
The partnership seeks to create a bridge between Boomplay’s vast collection of Afrobeats, featuring hit tracks like Rema’s “Calm Down” and Burna Boy’s club anthem “Last Last,” and TikTok’s dynamic short-form video platform. This way, Afrobeats can be experienced and enjoyed more interactive and immersive, enhancing its global appeal and impact.
The phenomenal rise of Afrobeats is evident in the astounding 13 billion streams it received on Spotify in 2022. With hit songs captivating audiences worldwide, the genre has solidified its position as one of Africa’s most significant cultural exports, reaching far beyond its borders.
