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Worl Boss! - Kartel has no equal on YouTube
January 06, 2021
For a third straight year, incarcerated deejay Vybz Kartel has emerged the most popular artiste on YouTube out of Jamaica.
Data from YouTube's Music Charts & Insights show that 'Worl Boss' finished miles ahead of Alkaline and Chronic Law, the other top three finishers.
Kartel amassed a staggering 85.3 million views in 2020, which is 35.2 million views more than Alkaline who got 50.2m. Chronic Law got 46.4m views.
Music Insights is calculated by combining all official versions of a song, including the official music video, user-made videos with the official song and lyric videos.
In addition to the 85 million views that Kartel garnered in 2020, the deejay achieved a total of 422 million total plays during the year. Total plays refers to the number of times the artiste's songs were viewed in different countries.
Alkaline amassed 193 million total plays while third-place finisher on the chart's top acts of the year list, Chronic Law, gained 83.4 million.
Music analyst Donovan Watkis says Kartel continues to dominate the YouTube space because he continues to maintain an unprecedented relevance even from behind bars.
"Although the music and music videos released under the Vybz Kartel banner is compelling for fans, there is something unique about his fans, they are his confidants," Watkis said. "They are into him, not only his music, so whatever he markets they will consume."
Watkis argued that artistes who develop relationships with their fans reap great success, and Kartel has done so over and over through his strong Gaza fan base.
"His most streamed songs are those released over a year ago, so it's not only about frequency of the releases but fans have their favourites that they stream over and over from his extensive catalogue," Watkis said.
Tracks like Come Home, Any Weather and Then You and Me were responsible for more than 30 million of Kartel's 85 million YouTube views. The charts also showed that the deejay had his highest listenership during the summer months of June and July, which happened to be a period of heavy COVID-19 lockdown.
"Because of the lockdown, more music was being consumed in Jamaica and the world. Music provided an avenue for the people to escape the many problems they faced in 2020. I mean, they couldn't see their favourite artistes live, but fans could stream their music and so the numbers rose significantly when compared to 2019," Watkis said.
In 2019, Kartel topped the list of popular artistes on YouTube out of Jamaica with 65.7 million views, which means that he got 19.6m more views this year. Alkaline managed 39 million YouTube views in 2019.
TOP 10 ARTISTES BASED ON YouTube VIEWS
1
Vybz Kartel
85.3m views
2
Alkaline
50.2m views
3
Chronic Law
46.4m views
4
Skillibeng
42.3m views
5
Intence
41.9m views
6
TeeJay
35.6m views
7
Shenseea
35m views
8
Masicka
33.3m views
9
Tommy Lee Sparta
32m views
10
Squash
30.5m views
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TOP 10 SONGS BASED ON YouTube VIEWS
1
Lockdown
Koffee
8.05m views
2
From Rags to Riches
TeeJay
6.03m views
3
Lighter
Tarrus Riley ft Shenseea, Rvssian
5.91m views
4
Life Is Good
Future
5.42m views
5
Under Vibes
Tommy Lee Sparta
5.35m views
6
Ocean Wave
Alkaline
5.25m views
7
Call Me If
Dexta Daps
4.91m views
8
Yamabella
Shaneil Muir
4.72m views
9
Cree
Alkaline
4.71m views
10
Torpedo
Skillibeng
4.56m views
Source: YouTube Music Charts & Insights
