Hip-Hop Rules Spotify, Thanks to Drake, Kendrick, and Wiz Khalifa

If you were streaming music during 2014, there's a decent chance you were listening to hip-hop, as a Buzzfeed report indicates that the genre was the most popular on the audio service last year. Reports indicate that more than 29 percent of music streamed via Spotify came from a rapper, thanks to Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and more.

Then again, it's not as if hip-hop totally overran the rest of the market. More than 25 percent of users were listening to rock music, while 21 percent listened to pop. It could be argued that hip-hop deserves more credit for the win, as there are most likely many more rock albums on Spotify than hip-hop albums. But again, using that logic, there are probably many more hip-hop albums than pop albums.

Either way, the genre is off to a hot start during 2015 as well. Four of the Top 5 most-streamed albums of 2015 belong to rappers—If You're Reading This It's Too Late by Drake, To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar, 2014 Forest Hills Drive by J. Cole and Dark Sky Paradise by Big Sean (One Direction's Four was the other).

Several Spotify records have been grabbed by hip-hop albums/singles this year: To Pimp A Butterfly became gained the record for most streams in one day (taking it from If You're Reading This) and then Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" broke the record for most song streams in one day.

Two things have helped hip-hop to the top. One, the "surprise" nature of both Drake and Lamar's new records have driven people into a furor, stirring up social media and invoking people to listen as soon as possible. Another major factor is the genre's position with the youth, who are more likely to use Spotify than elder listeners.

Along those same lines however, one would expect EDM to register more with the youth, yet the genre only gathered 7 percent of total streams. Considering that Avicii's "Wake Me Up!" is the most streamed song of all time, this suggests that those tuning in for EDM are singles-only listeners.

Tags

Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, J. Cole, Big Sean, One Direction, Avicii