Why Billboard Ranked Diana Hamilton over Joe Mettle, and Others
4 June 2020
By Naliaka Kitui
International magazine and music ranking outlet, Billboard has released a list of the most-watched homegrown artistes in 11 African countries for the 2019-2020 year. The list includes Ghana where Shatta Wale, Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, Diana Hamilton and Kofi Kinaata, who made the cut.
Nonetheless, the list generated a heated debate among music lovers in Ghana regarding how Diana Hamilton’s nod which is in contention made the cut over other ‘hot’ artistes like Joe Mettle, KiDi, Kuami Eugene, Medikal, or even Kofi Kinaata, who came 5th on the list.
According to Billboard’s metrics, the artistes were ranked based on their performance on YouTube only between May 2019 and May 2020 – a period of one year. It said the totals represent an artiste’s total views from, within the artiste’s respective country. They do not represent global views. This means that a if a Ghanaian artiste gets 100 million views on YouTube but 99.9 per cent of his views come from outside the country, he/she can’t make the cut.
It doesn’t matter how much views an artist gets. What Billboard focuses on is the local streaming numbers. This means out of Joe Mettle’s massive streaming numbers; he received more views from foreign countries than Ghana. This is why the likes of Medikal, KiDi, Kuami Eugene, Kwesi Arthur and other top artistes who have awesome streaming numbers on YouTube couldn’t make the cut.
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