UK grime artists are outperforming the music market with sales and streams almost doubling over the course of the past 12 months, new BPI analysis claims.
The research, produced in association with Disrupt Media and the Official Charts Company, cited artists such as recent Ivor Novello winner Skepta and Stormzy as driving the success.
The latter scored the first pure grime number one album on the Official Albums Chart in March, with his Gold-certified debut Gang Signs & Prayer. Skepta’s record won the Mercury Prize while he was also named as songwriter of the year at the Ivors.
Other success stories include Kano, Giggs, Bugzy Malone and Wiley who all scored top 10 albums.
The BPI’s analysis found that when converted into the industry standard AES metric (combining streaming with singles and album purchases to produce an overall consumption figure) grime tracks and albums released between May 2016 and 2017 saw two million-plus AES.
This represented a 93 percent rise in consumption for grime compared to an increase in six percent for the overall market.
According to the organisation, physical and digital sales of albums that could be classed as grime totalled almost 410,000 in the 12 months ending 4 May 2017.
There were additionally over 1.3m track downloads and close to 1.5bn track plays on streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.
Geoff Taylor, BPI and BRIT Awards chief executive, said: ‘Grime is a uniquely British phenomenon which has exerted a powerful underground influence for more than a decade but is now also making a real impact in the charts and on the mainstream of British music.
‘It’s not only helping to shape domestic consumption and trends, it is becoming a flag-bearer for Britain’s global reputation as a hub of musical innovation.’
Further findings showed that grime now enjoys a healthy 1.6 percent share of music consumption when compared to other genres.
For sales and streams for the period under review grime came in just behind classical (1.9 percent) but slightly ahead of country (1.4 percent), reggae (one percent) and folk (0.8 percent).
Visit the BPI website to read the full report.
The research, produced in association with Disrupt Media and the Official Charts Company, cited artists such as recent Ivor Novello winner Skepta and Stormzy as driving the success.
The latter scored the first pure grime number one album on the Official Albums Chart in March, with his Gold-certified debut Gang Signs & Prayer. Skepta’s record won the Mercury Prize while he was also named as songwriter of the year at the Ivors.
Other success stories include Kano, Giggs, Bugzy Malone and Wiley who all scored top 10 albums.
The BPI’s analysis found that when converted into the industry standard AES metric (combining streaming with singles and album purchases to produce an overall consumption figure) grime tracks and albums released between May 2016 and 2017 saw two million-plus AES.
This represented a 93 percent rise in consumption for grime compared to an increase in six percent for the overall market.
According to the organisation, physical and digital sales of albums that could be classed as grime totalled almost 410,000 in the 12 months ending 4 May 2017.
There were additionally over 1.3m track downloads and close to 1.5bn track plays on streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.
Geoff Taylor, BPI and BRIT Awards chief executive, said: ‘Grime is a uniquely British phenomenon which has exerted a powerful underground influence for more than a decade but is now also making a real impact in the charts and on the mainstream of British music.
‘It’s not only helping to shape domestic consumption and trends, it is becoming a flag-bearer for Britain’s global reputation as a hub of musical innovation.’
Further findings showed that grime now enjoys a healthy 1.6 percent share of music consumption when compared to other genres.
For sales and streams for the period under review grime came in just behind classical (1.9 percent) but slightly ahead of country (1.4 percent), reggae (one percent) and folk (0.8 percent).
Visit the BPI website to read the full report.
