Burna Boy becomes second African artiste to hit one billion YouTube views

By Ahmad Muto
Nigerian music star and Grammy-award winner Burna Boy has become the second most viewed African artiste on YouTube after notching one billion music video views across the video-streaming platform in just three years.
His songs On the low and Ye have stood out, attracting 226 million in two years and 160 million views in three years, respectively. He has now topped his Nigerian counterparts – Davido, Wizkid, Tekno and Tiwa Savage.
Tanzanian singer, Diamond Platnumz notched one billion Youtube views in June 2020, making him the first in Sub-saharan Africa. At the time, Burna Boy had 507 million views. Diamond made his contribution popularising Bongo flava and also mentored a number of artistes that have become big brands. Harmonize is a multi-award winner and has his own label, Konde Gang. While Rayvanny won a BET Award.
That said, North Africa is home to stars with the most views because of the market in the Middle East. Then there are African artistes based outside Africa like Malian France-based singer, Aya Nakamura who is closing in on two billion views. While Senegalese American rapper, Akon has more than 3.5 billion views.