Hipstarr Music Research — Global Asset Retention & IDI

6-Month Retention — Afrobeats

primary market ranked highest to lowest

Afrobeats

6-Month Retention — Latin Pop

primary market ranked highest to lowest

Latin Pop

Editorial Playlist Support vs Retention

does more playlisting mean more loyal listeners?

Afrobeats

Latin Pop

Stream Half-Life — All 26 Tracks

weeks until streams drop to 50% of peak python-calculated from raw kworb data

What this chart shows

Think of half-life like a candle. Soso burned for 29 weeks before halving. Bzrp Vol. 52 burned out in 5 weeks. Afrobeats average: 13.7 weeks. Latin Pop average: 11.1 weeks. By this measure, Afrobeats audiences actually stick around longer.

How to read it: Each bar is one track. A longer bar means it took more weeks for the audience to halve. The dashed vertical line marks 6 months. Dotted lines show each genre's average. Orange = Afrobeats. Teal = Latin Pop. Numbers on the bars show exact weeks.

Stream Decay Curves — All 26 Tracks

post-peak weekly behaviour 100% = peak week python-calculated

What this chart shows

Each line is one track starting at 100% (its peak week) then showing how streams evolved week by week afterward. Afrobeats curves tend to slope more gradually. Latin Pop curves tend to drop faster early on. Green zone = healthy retention above 50%. Red zone = rapid audience loss below 30%.

$Decay curves chart$

How to read it: Lines that stay in the green zone longest are your most durable catalogue assets. Lines that fall to the red zone quickly were events, not long-term catalogues. The 6-month marker (labelled "6mo") shows who still had a meaningful audience half a year after their peak.

Decay Rate Coefficient (Lambda) — All 26 Tracks

mathematical speed of audience decline lower = more durable catalogue asset

What lambda means

Lambda is a single number that captures how fast a track loses listeners. Soso has lambda 0.0033 — the lowest in the sample. It decays 39 times more slowly than Bzrp Vol. 52 (lambda 0.1284). Afrobeats average lambda 0.0784 vs Latin Pop 0.0481. Afrobeats is more durable by this measure.

Lambda ranked: Sorted from slowest decay (top) to fastest (bottom). A shorter bar means a more durable asset with longer income potential.

Half-life vs retention: Two independent ways to measure durability plotted together. Tracks in the top-right corner are the most valuable by both measures. Soso and Calm Down Remix lead for Afrobeats.

Audience Concentration vs Retention

X: top city share Y: primary retention bubble size: peak weekly streams

Afrobeats

Latin Pop

X-Axis: How concentrated is the audience?

Further right means one city dominates a larger share of streams. Lagos at 49% = far right. Mexico City at 7% = far left.

Y-Axis: How loyal is the audience?

Higher means more listeners were still streaming 6 months after the peak. Neverita is near the top. Attention and El Apagón are at zero.

Bubble size: How big was the peak?

Bigger bubble = more peak weekly streams. A large bubble sitting low means a massive hit that nobody stuck with after the hype.

City Concentration — Imperial Hub vs Federation

how the audience is distributed geographically across all tracks

Afrobeats — The Imperial Hub Model

Lagos on Every Single Track

Lagos, Nigeria

~41%

Abuja, Nigeria

~8.5%

London, UK

~4.5%

Port Harcourt

~3.9%

Accra, Ghana

~3.6%

Nigerian cities = 47 to 65% of total streaming audience per track. The audience is one community spread across multiple locations.

Latin Pop — The Federation Model

Distributed Across a Hemisphere

Mexico City

~6.8%

Santiago, Chile

~6.3%

Buenos Aires

~5.7%

Lima, Peru

~4.4%

Bogotá, Colombia

~4.1%

Top 5 cities combined = ~27%. No single city above 9%. Multiple communities. One language. 20 economies.

The Only Ceiling Breach — Calm Down Remix (Rema ft. Selena Gomez)

Lagos dropped from its usual 40 to 52% range down to just 15.70%. New York and Los Angeles entered the top 5 for the first time. This required all three conditions simultaneously: Selena Gomez co-sign plus 102 editorial playlists plus Billboard Pop Airplay No.1. Remove any one of those conditions and the Lagos ceiling holds.

Catalogue Valuation — Spotify Streaming Estimate

Spotify-only royalty rates retention-adjusted industry multiples excludes other DSPs

Afrobeats Est. Value

$28.9M

13 tracks

Latin Pop Est. Value

$87.4M

13 tracks

Valuation Gap

3.0x

Volume gap, not quality gap

Calm Down Remix (top asset)

$18.0M

62% of entire Afrobeats total

Why the 3x gap exists

Not royalty rates. Both genres earn similarly per stream in high-yield markets (US, UK, France). Latin Pop tracks simply accumulate 6 to 10 times more total streams per track. The retention quality is already there in Afrobeats. What is missing is scale of consumption. Fix the volume — the gap closes. Note: Spotify-only estimate. Does not include Apple Music, YouTube Music, or other DSPs.

How this was calculated: Each track's audience geography determines a blended per-stream rate (US/UK/FR earns ~$0.004 per stream vs ~$0.0004 in Nigeria). Annual revenue is estimated using retention to scale down from the peak year. That revenue is then multiplied by an industry catalogue multiple: 20x for high-retention tracks (40%+), 16x for stable tracks (25 to 40%), 10x for event-driven tracks (below 25%). Spotify-only estimates. Excludes Apple Music, YouTube Music, Tidal and other platforms. Not confirmed earnings or deal terms.

Complete Dataset — All 26 Tracks

primary retention half-life lambda top city IDI score sorted by retention

Track	Genre	Peak Streams	Market	Retention	Half-Life	Lambda	Top City	IDI
Neverita Bad Bunny	Latin	7M	MX	71.74%	7w	0.02	Mexico City 6.84%	70.01
Soso Omah Lay	Afro	0M	NG	58.8%	29w	0.0033	Lagos 49.19%	43.23
Títí Me Preguntó Bad Bunny	Latin	10M	MX	53.23%	20w	0.0365	Mexico City 6.26%	73.01
Provenza Karol G	Latin	7M	MX	52.32%	28w	0.0142	Mexico City 7.04%	71.32
Calm Down Remix Rema ft. Selena Gomez	Afro	5M	US	48.17%	25w	0.0478	Lagos 15.7%	70.16
Me Porto Bonito Bad Bunny ft. Chencho	Latin	12M	MX	46.53%	22w	0.0246	Mexico City 8.83%	66.8
Yonaguni Bad Bunny	Latin	4M	MX	44.79%	10w	0.032	Santiago 7.02%	54.04
Soundgasm Rema	Afro	0M	NL	44.12%	16w	0.0695	Lagos 41.29%	43.51
Peru Remix Fireboy DML ft. Ed Sheeran	Afro	2M	GB	39.94%	24w	0.0372	Lagos 39.11%	49.93
Essence Wizkid ft. Tems	Afro	1M	GB	39.0%	15w	0.0747	Lagos 35.7%	49.46
Last Last Burna Boy	Afro	2M	GB	36.58%	17w	0.0323	Lagos 40.76%	44.77
Love Nwantiti CKay	Afro	3M	US	32.71%	21w	0.0675	Lagos 41.97%	46.32
Ku Lo Sa Oxlade	Afro	1M	NL	29.73%	11w	0.0435	Lagos 48.97%	41.8
Rush Ayra Starr	Afro	1M	FR	29.6%	10w	0.0688	Lagos 45.8%	41.48
Moscow Mule Bad Bunny	Latin	12M	MX	28.71%	3w	0.042	Santiago 6.92%	54.41
Telepathía Kali Uchis	Latin	7M	US	28.58%	14w	0.0354	Los Angeles 12.13%	55.23
It's Plenty Burna Boy	Afro	0M	NG	27.92%	2w	0.011	Lagos 43.86%	28.0
Bzrp Vol. 52 Quevedo ft. Bizarrap	Latin	14M	MX	26.11%	5w	0.1284	Buenos Aires 15.7%	58.3
Todo De Ti Rauw Alejandro	Latin	13M	MX	25.26%	8w	0.0293	Mexico City 7.37%	58.62
Bichota Karol G	Latin	8M	MX	22.96%	15w	0.0442	Mexico City 6.52%	44.5
TQG Karol G ft. Shakira	Latin	16M	MX	18.53%	5w	0.0518	Mexico City 6.54%	54.51
Unavailable Davido ft. Musa Keys	Afro	1M	NG	12.21%	2w	0.0609	Lagos 31.16%	43.01
Bzrp Vol. 53 Shakira ft. Bizarrap	Latin	20M	MX	10.88%	4w	0.086	Buenos Aires 14.81%	46.95
Peru Original Fireboy DML	Afro	0M	GB	0.0%	3w	0.4755	Lagos 52.8%	13.2
Attention Omah Lay ft. Justin Bieber	Afro	2M	US	0.0%	3w	0.0275	Lagos 32.06%	18.64
El Apagón Bad Bunny	Latin	5M	MX	0.0%	3w	0.0815	Santiago 6.32%	30.19

Key Findings — Complete Analysis

26 tracks retention + half-life + lambda + cities + valuation

01

Statistical Tie, Structural Story

After Data-Lifecycle Mismatch correction, the retention gap is just 2.3%. Afrobeats 30.7% vs Latin Pop 33.0%. Near-identical numbers but Afrobeats half-life is longer (13.7w vs 11.1w). Two different commercial architectures producing almost the same result.

02

Soso Is the Best Asset in the Sample

Half-life 29 weeks, lambda 0.0033, retention 58.8%, 8 editorial playlists, no co-sign. Decays 39 times more slowly than Bzrp Vol. 52. The organic premium is real and mathematically quantifiable. Community loyalty beats institutional support every time.

03

The Valuation Gap Is Volume, Not Quality

Latin Pop $87.4M vs Afrobeats $28.9M (3x gap). Driven entirely by stream volume, not royalty rates. Both genres have comparable high-yield market share. Calm Down Remix alone accounts for 62% of the entire Afrobeats sample value.

04

The Lagos Lock Is Structural

Lagos is the number 1 streaming city on 100% of Afrobeats tracks. Nigerian cities average 47 to 65% of audience per track regardless of year, peak market, co-sign, or editorial support. This is architecture, not coincidence.

05

Co-sign Quality Beats Co-sign Scale

Justin Bieber (6.9M peak) delivered 0% retention in 3 weeks. Ed Sheeran delivered 39.9% and 24 weeks. Selena Gomez delivered 48.2% and 25 weeks. Bieber is arguably the bigger name. The foundation beneath the co-sign is what determines whether it sticks.

06

Bzrp Vol. 52 Burns Fastest

Lambda 0.1284 and half-life 5 weeks despite a 13.6M peak. The fastest-decaying track in the dataset. The contrast with Soso (lambda 0.0033, half-life 29 weeks) confirms that peak size and durability are completely independent variables.