The song opened with the biggest streaming numbers of any song on Spotify Nigeria.
Rema and Shallipopi Make Historic Entry With “Benin Boys”
BY Henry-Damian Justice
June 27, 2024
8:47 pm
Benin-born musicians Rema and Shallipopi’s latest song “Benin Boys” debuted on June 20 to significant success.
On Spotify Nigeria, the track recorded 619,379 streams on its first day of release, surpassing Kizz Daniel and Davido’s “Twe Twe” as the song with the biggest first-day streams in 2024. It also holds the second-biggest debut of all time on the platform, behind only Wizkid and Zlatan’s “IDK.”
The two-minute, fifty-second song, which highlights the wealth and power of Benin youth, had accumulated 2.6 million streams as of June 26. This achievement is particularly notable given the competition from Asake and Central Cee’s “Wave” and Victony’s debut album “Stubborn,” both released on the same day.
With “Benin Boys,” Shallipopi now has three entries in the top five biggest song debuts of 2024 on Spotify Nigeria.
Currently, the top five songs with the biggest debuts on Spotify Nigeria are: Rema and Shallipopi’s “Benin Boys” with 619,000 streams, Asake and Central Cee’s “Wave” with 433,000 streams, Kizz Daniel and Davido’s remix of “Twe Twe” with 305,000 streams, and Shallipopi’s “Asap” and “High Tension,” with 294,000 and 255,000 streams, respectively.
Shallipopi has also dominated the 2024 Spotify charts in other areas. His debut album “Shakespopi” had 1.59 million streams in 24 hours when it was released on April 11, the biggest of 2024. This surpasses the 1.27 million streams of Arya Star’s “The Year I Turned 21,” as well as the debut albums of Tems’ “Born In The Wild” and Young John’s “Jiggy Forever,” which opened with 1.03 million and 860,000 streams, respectively.
The album charts indicate a growing attention to debut projects, with four out of the top six being debut albums. Ruger and Buju’s “R&B” at 765,000 streams and Victony’s recently released debut album “Stubborn” at 760,000 streams hold the fifth and sixth spots, respectively.
“Benin Boys” and “Wave” are currently vying to unseat the “Tswhala Bam” Remix’s five-week reign at the top of the Official Nigeria Top 100 on the TurnTable charts. The updated charts on June 27 will provide further clarity on the outcome.