Adedokun Waliyu 
Spotify, the streaming platform, has launched a new website dedicated to gathering data and tracking the growth of Afrobeats.
The company announced the platform, titled ‘Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams’, in a statement on Thursday.
Spotify said the platform will house Afrobeats-related data, including infographics and visual elements.
The organisation added that the initiative is aimed at promoting Afrobeats, which has become one of Africa’s “biggest cultural exports”.
Spotify added that the website will be updated on biweekly basis and will educate listeners on new “Afrobeats moments”.
“The site will act as a repository for this cultural phenomenon housing text, infographics, and visual elements, including Spotify streaming data and results from the Spotify commissioned April 2023 Afrobeats survey. The survey, conducted by research firm Kuvora, tracks the rise of Afrobeats and its cultural impact over decades,” the statement reads.
“The site will be updated on a biweekly basis for the next 8 weeks but will remain active beyond this as an always-on resource, with frequent updates on new Afrobeats moments. It will also include an interactive experience for fans to discover and connect with new knowledge on Afrobeats.
“The site will also include key Afrobeats timelines over the years, interesting Spotify data, excerpts from interviews with industry experts and man on the street videos from key markets in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, managing director of Spotify in sub-saharan Africa, said the website will enhance understanding of Afrobeats.
“There is no doubt that Afrobeats as a genre is here to stay, and will only continue to shatter more ceilings. In 2023 alone, the genre has been played for more than 223 million hours with streams exceeding 7.1 billion on Spotify,” it added.
“We created this site for both new and longtime fans of the genre, who would like to have a better understanding of how and where this explosive sound came to be.”
