In April 2017, American hip-hop superstar Kendrick Lamar successfully swept away the rankings of some of the most popular global musicians, rising up from rank 38 in March top music artist chart to being crowned king. After the April 14 release of his 14-song album “Damn”, the number of fans who shared his music shot up from an average of 23,000 daily P2P users to 175,620 on the day of release. This significantly outperformed both his past album releases of “To Pimp a Butterfly” on March 16, 2015, and “Untitled Unmastered” on March 4, 2016 (see infographic).
Unsurprisingly, the countries seeing the most activity in April were the United States, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia, all of which make up Kendrick Lamar’s fan base. Looking at the top-ranking countries, Kendrick Lamar’s music has primarily attracted English-speaking file sharers. Among these countries’ charts, the UK was the only country where Kendrick Lamar didn’t reach the top rank. There, hometown hero Ed Sheeran and hip-hop artist Drake successfully defended their top spots, leaving Kendrick Lamar with third place.
Source: TECXIPIO
Definition: Number of file sharers: How many peers shared at least one music file of Kendrick Lamar within the respective time period?