The familiar trio of hip hop giants keeps the hold over the music industry for another year.
Recently published streaming numbers show that Eminem has gained 6.86 billion streams as a lead artist in 2023. With added streams coming from features, Em’s year gains go up to 7.48 billion.
These numbers are provided by Chartmasters.org, who, unlike the Spotify Wrapped, didn’t stop in November but kept count until the very end of 2023 and also made adjustment for some mistakes. For instance, this is how they explain Travis Scott’s place on the list: “This #17 ranking seems inconsistent with Spotify’s own list, which charted the American rapper at 7. Our archives reveal that he gained an extra 600 million streams on June 18, and then 1.12 billion on July 18, when Utopia came out. These extra streams came from songs from various former collaborative projects (Jackboys, The Scotts, Huncho Jack) that got a Travis Scott lead credit during the last summer, which artificially inflated his yearly total”.
This adjustment moves Travis Scott down the ranking significantly. It returns Kanye to the place where the majority expected him to see.
It does look consistent with the artist’s charting performance, including that on the Spotify Charts. Let’s just say that Eminem has his songs on the Spotify Global 200 chart throughout the year, most frequently featuring there “Without Me”, “Mockingbird”, “The Real Slim Shady, “Godzilla”, and “Lose Yourself”.
So, just as in 2022 and mid-2023, Drake, Kanye West and Eminem remain the most streamed hip-hop artists on Spotify. And Eminem — the most streamed artist from the pre-streaming era on the platform.
Here is the Top 20 of the most streamed artists of all genres in 2023, according to Chartmasters.org:
1. Taylor Swift – 29.10 billion
2. Bad Bunny – 16.37 billion
3. The Weeknd – 14.14 billion
4. Drake – 14.03 billion
5. Peso Pluma – 10.54 billion
6. Feid – 7.90 billion
7. Karol G – 7.41 billion
8. SZA – 7.10 billion
9. Kanye West – 6.94 billion
10. Lana Del Rey – 6.93 billion
11. Eminem – 6.86 billion
12. Metro Boomin – 6.53 billion
13. Junior H – 6.38 billion
14. Ed Sheeran – 6.35 billion
15. Arijit Singh – 6.35 billion
16. Ariana Grande – 6.23 billion
17. Travis Scott – 6.14 billion
18. Morgan Wallen – 6.14 billion
19. Billie Eilish – 6.01 billion
20. Rihanna – 5.95 billion
