For the past three years or so, industry conversations led by institutions such as the Recording Industry of Kenya (Rike) have increasingly circled on the need to have official national music charts for the Kenyan market, just as Billboard Charts are to the American music industry, or the Official UK Charts.
Other influential Music Charts include Spotify Charts, said to be the biggest representation of streaming, reflecting real-time, on-demand listenership across the world, and YouTube Music Charts, ranked as the definitive charts for video views, visual media, and overall global music consumption.
Charts do more than spotlight a hit song or a popular artiste; they offer analysis of music trends probability of being profitable.
In the United States, the Billboard Charts, introduced in 1913, have become the gold standard for measuring success. From the Hot 100 to Top 40 Hits and album rankings, the Billboard has long served as a trusted indicator of what America is listening to.
According to Bilha Ngaruiya, Kenyan country manager for ONErpm, an international music distribution, publishing, and label services company that entered the Kenyan market in 2023, music charts are the definitive barometers of commercial and cultural success. “To put it simply, they are the industry's scoreboard. They track commercial and cultural success, drive revenue, validate careers, influence marketing and touring decisions, and often shape the direction of the music business itself. They also provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of music consumption,” Ms Ngaruiya explains. “Such a model is what our Kenyan industry desperately needs. It's one thing to rate a song's popularity by how it trends on social media. It's another to measure how it actually commercially performs over time."
Despite the push by Ngaruiya and other like-minded industry stakeholders for the establishment of an official Kenyan music charts, the task seems to be daunting. Angela Mwandanda, Rike's national coordinator, says setting up music charts is expensive. “One of our mandates as Rike is to come up with a Kenya Music Chart that will mimic the Billboard Charts. But this is a very capital-intensive undertaking, because you need data to have reputable music charts that accurately reflect the Kenyan music industry state. At the moment, as Rike, we are building on that data,” Mwandanda says.
The former Tattuu bandmate remains optimistic, especially with funding from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
IFPI is the international body that represents the interests of the music recording industry in the world. It entered Kenya with the establishment of Rike in 2020. “Once we develop a Kenyan music chart, we can now determine and certify when an artiste has sold platinum, gold or silver records, which will be recognised globally." “In the US, you have had many artistes achieve platinum record status, which indicates selling over one million unit downloads/streams of be it albums or singles. For example, Michael Jackson’s Thriller album is certified as 33x Platinum in the US, meaning he has sold over 33 million copies of that album,” she explains.
But, in the Kenyan context, the music charts, she says, will be different. “Each country comes up with its charts based on data about music consumption habits of that country. In our case, we are supposed to come up with a similar structure which will be recognised worldwide. We might not copy the US on what numbers will constitute our platinum, but we will certainly rely on IFPI guidelines to come up with our own structure based on the data we collect.”
Music charts in those established markets remain crucial in building the reputations of an artistes and amplifying their brands to attract endorsements and partnership deals, deal negotiation, potential investors, and recognisability. “I know many Kenyan artistes are motivated by the number of followers they have on social media, but imagine getting a Kenyan version of the Grammy, a certified music chart recognised all over the world,” she says. “Our counterparts, the Recording Industry of South Africa, are already doing it, hosting an Awards gala every year and using their national music charts called The Official SA Charts to reward excellence. Once we do this right, it will have a ripple effect in our industry. This explains why South Africa remains the number one music market in Africa and continues to generate more revenue than any other. We are playing catch-up here."
ONErpm launched music charts, ONECertified, in April this year. The platform compiles streaming data from five major digital service providers where ONErpm distributes its artistes' music: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Audiomack, and Boomplay. “Music releases distributed through ONErpm qualify for three certification tiers based on cumulative streams measured from the release date. We award plaques at specific milestones, with Silver recognising 10 million streams, gold 20 million and above, and platinum 50 million and above. We want artists to see proof that success is possible, that growth is achievable, and that every milestone can be surpassed,” Ms Ngaruiya says.
Willy Paul is the only artiste to go platinum on ONECertified, with his album Beyond Gifted released in 2024, which has amassed 56.8 million combined streams.
