Five years of Spotify in Kenya: the growth story behind what listeners put on repeat
In February 2021, Spotify arrived in Kenya. Five years later, the way Kenyans listen, discover, and champion the sounds they love has grown steadily, year after year.

Here are a few of the trends that tell the story:

The big picture: listening keeps compounding
Kenya’s year-on-year listening growth has climbed consistently since launch, with strong early momentum and continued growth through 2025, with an average growth rate of 68%.

The culture engine: Amapiano growth leads the way
Amapiano is not just rising, it is scaling fast. From 2021 to 2025, Amapiano streams in Kenya grew by +1,404%.

And the wider mix of sounds Kenyans love is expanding too:

● Gospel/Praise: +1,103%

● R&B: +737%

● Afrobeats: +680%

● Hip-hop/Rap: +520%

Local languages, turned up

Listening to music in Kenyan indigenous languages is rising sharply, both inside Kenya and beyond, signalling a growing appetite for local-language storytelling and sound.
In Kenya, indigenous-language listening saw a major spike with more than 101% growth locally in the last five years. Globally, indigenous-language listening growth also grew, including +128% in 2024 with a year-on-year growth of 69%.

Kenya’s most-streamed artists over the last five years

Across five years of listening in Kenya, these are the artists who have dominated the speakers:

● Drake

● Chris Brown

● Future

● Burna Boy

● Travis Scott

Kenya’s most-streamed songs over the last five years

These are the tracks Kenyans have returned to again and again:

● “Asiwaju” – Ruger

● “Rush” – Ayra Starr

● “Bandana” – Asake, Fireboy DML

● “Inauma” – Bien

● “Lonely At The Top” – Asake

● “Aki Sioni” – Njerae

● “Beta” – Mutoriah

● “Last Last” – Burna Boy

● “WAIT FOR U (feat. Drake & Tems)” – Drake, Future, Tems

● “SINA NOMA” – Charisma

More Kenyan artists to discover

The number of Kenyan artists on Spotify has grown +112% 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, Kenyans have created more than 9-million user-generated playlists on Spotify.

Listening time is massive: in 2025 alone, Kenya clocked over 203-million hours played on Spotify. Podcast listening is growing too, with more than 35-million podcast hours streamed since launch.

What Kenyan listeners are doing differently

As the catalogue grows, so does discovery: in the most recent month measured, the average listener in Kenya streamed 124 different artists. Kenya’s average listener age is 26, pointing to a young, digitally native audience shaping culture in real time.


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