For most of this year, it has been assumed that much of the music being consumed on streaming services, particularly Spotify, has fallen into the hip hop or R&B categories. With playlists like RapCaviar being followed by millions of people, it stands to reason that the company now plays a huge role in making or breaking artists or songs and quite possibly setting sonic trends that will be gobbled up by the masses. Thanks to an end-of-year report from Spotify, we now know the extent to which hip hop has been listened to in the United States in 2017, and it's impressive.
According to their press release, which can be found on their website, Spotify's statistical evidence shows that hip hop, as a genre, saw a 74% increase in listenership this year versus 2016, which is an incredibly impressive number. Hip hop was in no way a dormant style of music last year either, with the likes of Drake helping to make it an unforgettable 2016 for the genre; and yet, somehow, 2017 topped it.
It was also a landmark year forLatin music, with two tracks going to #1 on Spotify for the first time: "Despacito" and "Mi Gente." In addition to that, 10 Latin songs appeared on Spotify’s Global Top 50 and the remix to "Despacito" was named as the company's "Song of the Summer." With some crossover success already happening between hip hop and latin artists, most notably Camila Cabello's track "Havana," both of these subsections of the music business should only continue to grow in 2018.
While we're on the subject of streaming services, check out what Apple Music head honcho Jimmy Iovine has to say about the state of Spotify's business model here.