Sunday’s BET Awards had winners, losers, and everything in between. Here’s the data behind the biggest moments.
Mission
Good morning, it’s Rutger here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
Date
This is your Data Dump for Tuesday, June 25, 2019.
The Data Behind the BET Awards
Now that the dust has settled from Sunday’s BET Awards, let’s look at the data behind the ceremony’s bright spots.
One of the evening’s most special moments happened when the award for Best Male Hip-Hop Artist went to Nipsey Hussle, who died tragically on March 31 in Los Angeles.
The rapper also received the Humanitarian Award, which his grandmother graciously accepted.
While Nipsey’s star was already on the rise before the tragedy, immediately following the news of his death, fans undeniably pushed his work onto the world stage, bumping him from an estimated 2.2 million monthly Spotify listeners to an April 26 peak of an estimated 11.8 million monthly Spotify listeners.
His posthumous feature with John Legend on DJ Khaled’s “Higher” continues to make its presence known on Apple Music’s African and Caribbean Top 100 playlists, in addition to Hip-Hop A-List playlists as well.
Speaking of, this year’s Best International Act Award went to Nigeria’s Burna Boy and the Best New International Act Award went to South Africa’s Sho Madjozi.
Burna Boy is currently on 21 Best of the Week Apple Music playlists around the world, and he also finds himself at the top of Spotify’s Hot Hits UK, African Heat, and Afro Hits playlists.
Sho Madjozi, meanwhile, only finds herself on four editorial playlists on Spotify but on six Best of the Week Apple Music playlists throughout Africa and a number of Top 100 Apple Music playlists in various African countries.
While she’s largely regional now, Madjozi’s BET recognition indicates a growing potential for overseas visibility.
Now, can we talk about how much Mary J. Blige and Lizzo owned the stage?
Blige is a living R&B/hip-hop legend, and her performance on and off that stage proved it.
Instead of losing followers and listeners as her music ages, she continues to gain them.
In 2016, Blige’s followers sat just under 500K, but today, she’s at an estimated 1.9 million on Spotify.
While the change hasn’t been quite as drastic for her monthly listenership, her shrinking listener to follower ratio and her growing follower conversion (she’s gaining at least 1K Spotify followers daily) indicates she’s still got it.
Her YouTube views bolster this point by sporting a strong “weekend bump” every Friday through Sunday, suggesting people still party down with the queen of hip-hop soul.
Lizzo meanwhile, can apparently twerk and play the flute all at once, but she’s got a ways to go when it comes to follower conversion.
Unlike Blige’s 3:1 listener to follower ratio, which makes sense given the longevity of her career, Lizzo’s is at 36:1, meaning 17.5 million people might be listening to her a month on Spotify, but if she wants Blige’s longevity, her 500K followers are going to have to start snowballing to catch up.
A high ratio for an emerging artist is usually a promising sign, however, so Lizzo has plenty to look forward to.
All numbers and names aside, the real winner here was the awards ceremony itself.
Outro
That’s it for your Daily Data Dump for Tuesday, June 25, 2019. This is Rutger from Chartmetric.