NEARLY A THIRD OF ALL STREAMS IN THE US LAST YEAR WERE OF HIP-HOP AND R&B ARTISTS

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%).