Onome Amuge
Spotify reports that Nigerians spent 1.3 billion hours listening on the platform in 2025, a significant rise that underlines the fast-growing embeddedness of streaming in daily routines. Daily streams grew by 23 per cent, reflecting the stabilisation of streaming as an integral part of urban life, supported by relatively cheaper data bundles and broader smartphone penetration.
The platform’s new Listening Age metric reveals that the average Nigerian listener is 25 years old, placing the country firmly within the global bracket of the youngest, most active digital music consumers. For brands and rights holders, that demographic concentration points to a decade of monetisation ahead, particularly as this cohort transitions into higher-income earning brackets.
Spotify’s Wrapped 2025’s most striking trend is the rise of a new generation of artists whose breakthrough success indicates a shift in how Nigerian talent develops and reaches scale.
Four emerging acts (Fido, Kunmie, Faceless and FOLA) broke into the country’s top 10 most-streamed songs, a rare occurrence in a market typically dominated by long-established names. Fido’s Joy is Coming (#2), Kunmie’s Arike (#3), Faceless’s Venus (#4) and FOLA’s Lost (#6) highlight an important structural change, indicating that Nigeria is no longer a top-heavy market. Rather, it is becoming one where new entrants can disrupt the dominance of legacy stars within months, fuelled by short-form video virality, fan-driven playlisting and algorithmic discovery.
Despite the rise of newcomers, the top of Nigeria’s charts remains anchored by the country’s biggest names. Davido’s With You (feat. Omah Lay) was the most-streamed song in Nigeria in 2025, while Wizkid’s Morayo topped the Spotify albums ranking. Asake continues to show unusual catalogue depth, placing three albums in the country’s top 10,an outcome that signals high overall listening volume, which often translates into stronger negotiation power with labels and streaming platforms.
The top streamed artists on the Spotify list, including Wizkid, Seyi Vibez, Asake, Burna Boy and Odumodublvck, confirms the continued strength of Afrobeats and its adjacent genres. These artists anchor consistent consumption cycles that help stabilise platform engagement, while also driving global recognition and touring revenue.
Wrapped 2025 also shows meaningful diversification in the women’s category. Ayra Starr remains Nigeria’s most-streamed female artist on Spotify, but the presence of Tems, Smur Lee, Tiwa Savage and Sunmisola reflects the breadth of the female talent economy.
Smur Lee’s strong rise, driven by collaborations melding street-hop and Amapiano elements, underscores the market’s appetite for genre fusion. Sunmisola’s ranking, powered by gospel music, reaffirms the enduring commercial viability of spiritual content, a category often overlooked in traditional music business analysis but consistently strong in Nigerian consumption patterns.
Export value and global soft power continue to strengthen
For a third consecutive year, Nigeria’s global music influence remains robust. Burna Boy, Tems, Rema, Ayra Starr and Wizkid lead the list of most-exported Nigerian artists.
Rema’s Calm Down, now a stable global hit, extended its lead as the most-exported Nigerian song. The track remains a case study in Nigeria’s emerging global hit economy, boasting of songs that generate long-tail revenue for years as they circulate across playlists, sync deals, international radio, and touring markets.
Beyond music, Wrapped 2025 reveals a podcast market undergoing rapid acceleration. Listening hours grew 97 per cent year-on-year, while podcast creation increased 48 per cent.
More surprising is the thematic pattern which shows that Nigeria’s top-streamed podcasts are dominated by faith and spirituality. This confirms an emerging reality, showing that as audio becomes more integrated into Nigeria’s digital routines, spiritual content is evolving from traditional church-based formats into an on-demand digital category with measurable scale.
Unlike music catalogues, podcasts require no licensing payments per listen, meaning higher margins. If faith-based podcasts continue to grow, the platform is projected to find itself with a significant and cost-efficient foothold in an audience segment traditionally hard to reach digitally.
Phiona Okumu, Spotify’s Head of Music for Sub-Saharan Africa, summarised Nigeria’s audio moment simply: “Nigeria’s 2025 Wrapped paints a picture of a music scene that is absolutely thriving. It’s incredible to see how fast Nigerians embrace fresh voices right alongside the legends.”
