Over 30% of all on-demand audio and video streams in the United States last year were of tracks recorded by R&B and hip-hop artists.
That’s according to new stats from industry monitor MRC Data, compiled with Billboard.
In the case of on-demand video streams, the ‘R&B/hip-hop’ category actually claimed over a third of all plays, at 33.9%.
In terms of audio streams, ‘R&B/hip-hop’ claimed 30.7% of all on-demand plays. And across audio and video streams combined, ‘R&B/hip-hop’ claimed 31.1%.
These startling figures meant that the ‘R&B/hip-hop’ category increased its market share of total ‘album-equivalent sales’ in the US in 2020, which take into account physical sales, digital sales, and streaming.
In 2020, says MRC Data (formerly Nielsen Music), ‘R&B/hip-hop’ claimed a 28.2% share of total album-equivalent consumption. That was up on both 2019 (27.4%) and 2018 (25.6%).
Meanwhile, Rock was the second most popular genre in the US in 2020, both across all formats, and across on-demand streaming platforms.
Rock claimed 16.3% of on-demand audio streams in the US last year, ahead of Pop on 13.1%.
The most popular track on both on-demand audio and video streaming platforms in the US last year was The Box by Roddy Ricch, which accrued 920.4m on-demand audio plays, and 399.2m on-demand video plays across 2020.
The US’s second most popular audio streaming track of the year was The Weeknd with Blinding Lights (691.5m) followed by DaBaby feat Roddy Ricch with Rockstar (674.0m).
Combined, the top 10 audio on-demand streaming tracks in the US in 2019 — led by Lil Nas X with Old Town Road — attracted 6.218bn plays, according to MRC Data.
The top 10 in 2020, led by Roddy Ricch’s The Box, pulled in the lesser figure of 5.968bn plays.
