How Diamond Platnumz became Africa's best on YouTube charts
What you need to know:
Diamond's views come from outside Tanzania, with Kenya accounting for most of the numbers, while Tanzania comes second then the US
Bongo Flava star Diamond Platnumz has recorded another milestone after American entertainment media brand Billboard, this week published a compendium on Africa's music industry which put the singer among the continent's best.
YouTube's music trends manager Kevin Meenan, who oversaw the collection and analysis of the YouTube Music Charts & Insights data found on Billboard's Deep Drive said Diamond's innovative approach with his YouTube channel is to be commended.
"Diamond's entrepreneurial strategy that includes an FM radio station and a full-service management, recording, publishing and entertainment company - WCB, which represents some of Tanzania's top artistes is a huge success story," he says.
Diamond's YouTube channel has over 3.6 million subscribers and the singer has amassed a "mind-blowing" 980 million views on his channel.
Taking a one-year tally from May 1, 2019, to May 1, 2020, YouTube data shows that among the top 15 Sub-Saharan African artistes on the digital platform, Diamond is ranked 2nd with 291.98 million views.
This is better than Nigerian artiste Davido's 285.76 million views and Wizkid's 176.23 million views in the same time span. It is only Burna Boy, with a total of 435.57 million views who's ahead of Diamond.
Among the 15 African artistes, Nigeria led the pack with seven artistes, followed by Tanzania with three - Diamond, Harmonize and Rayvanny. The only other representative from East Africa is Uganda's Eddy Kenzo.
The data further revealed that most of Diamond's views come from outside Tanzania, with Kenya accounting for most of the numbers, while Tanzania comes second followed by the US.
Since opening his YouTube account Diamond has uploaded over 600 videos, something which astounded Meenan. "I literally had to check it three times to make sure it was right," he says.
What has also contributed to the high viewership numbers on Diamond's page, according to the released details, is the fact that for every official music video he has, he might have anywhere from five to 20 or more song and nonsong content video, "that for instance, could include documentary-style or behind-the-scenes footage.
