@AppleMusic Drops Best Of 2018, See South Africa's Top 100 Listened Songs

It's that time of the year where the media and music industry rounds up artist performances. From the forthcoming South African Hip Hop Awards and even MTV Base Top 10 Hottest MCs, Apple Music joins the bill with tallying up the biggest songs and albums on their global platform.

Naturally my biggest interest is what South African consumers who use the platform are interested in. Not only that, but how does SA hip hop fair in the roster of musicians across the board? Zooming in on the Top 100 songs that South Africans have been listening to, only 3% is represented by hip hop with Nasty C featuring on Dj Maphorisa and Major Lazer's Particula, Kwesta's Spirit, as well as AKA's Fela In Versace making an appearance. Not to frighten you on the low representation, only 13% of the songs listed in the top 100 are by South African artists which basically means that the local market - specifically Apple Music users, prefer international music. Whether this has anything to do with the lack of patriotism in mainstream media or not is a whole debate of its own but that low percentage is very telling. It is also very important to note that a large portion of our population is not necessarily on Apple Music either, just to give you perspective, so it's not all doomsday. 

You will also find it interesting that on the top 100 albums chart, SA hip hop is represented by 3% with Nasty C's Strings And Bling ranking highest at number 13, AKA's Touch My Blood ranking at number 19, and Cassper Nyovest's Thuto coming in at number 94.

Check out the top 100 songs that we have been listening to as a nation (relatively) on Apple Music this past year: