Five years of Spotify in Nigeria: the growth story behind what listeners put on repeat
In February 2021, Spotify arrived in Nigeria. Five years later, the way Nigerians listen, discover, and champion homegrown sounds has accelerated fast.
Here are a few of the trends that tell the story.
The big picture: listening keeps compounding
Nigeria’s year-on-year listening growth has climbed dramatically since launch, with triple-digit surges in the early years and continued momentum through 2025 with an average growth rate of 163.5%.
The culture engine: Afrobeats growth leads the way
Afrobeats is not just thriving, it is scaling at extraordinary speed. From 2021 to 2025, Afrobeats streams in Nigeria grew by +5,022%.
And the wider mix of sounds Nigerians love is expanding too:
-
Amapiano: +10,330%
-
Gospel/Praise: +5,499%
-
Hip-hop/Rap: +3,020%
-
R&B: +2,602%
Local languages, turned up
Listening to music in Nigerian indigenous languages is rising sharply, both inside Nigeria and beyond, signalling a growing appetite for local-language storytelling and sound.
In Nigeria, indigenous-language listening saw major jumps including +554% in 2024 and +87% in 2025. Globally, indigenous-language listening growth also spiked, including +141% in 2024 and +41% in 2025.
The very first song ever streamed in Nigeria
The first track streamed in Nigeria at launch was:
A reminder that from the very first moment, listening in Nigeria has been borderless: curious, eclectic, and always open to discovery.
Nigeria’s most-streamed artists over the last five years
Across five years of listening in Nigeria, these are the artists who have dominated the speakers:
Nigeria’s most-streamed songs over the last five years
And these are the tracks that Nigerians have returned to again and again:
More Nigerian artists to discover
The number of Nigerian artists on Spotify has grown +158% since launch, reflecting an expanding pipeline of local creators reaching audiences at home and around the world.
Five years, millions of playlists, and serious listening time
Over the past five years, Nigerians have created over 25million user-generated playlists on Spotify.
And listening time is massive: in 2025 alone, Nigeria clocked over 1.4million play hours on Spotify. Podcast listening is growing too, with over 59 billion total podcast hours streamed since launch.
What Nigerian listeners are doing differently
As the catalogue grows, so does discovery: in the most recent months the average listener in Nigeria streamed 150 different artists. Nigeria’s average listener age is 26, pointing to a young, digitally native audience shaping culture in real time.
