Afrobeats among SoundCloud’s rising global subgenres

Through its new end-of-year campaign dubbed Look Up by Sprite, the music streaming service has identified the styles and musical subgenres that fired up the platform in 2022 and are projected to go mainstream soon.

The report, based on SoundCloud’s extensive data featuring 40 million artists, more than 320 million tracks and 150 million listeners, spotlights the scenes that gained a strong fan following in 2022.

“It isn't about celebrating the biggest artists or the most-streamed,” SoundCloud’s vice president, head of global marketing, Jenn Wong, said. “It's about the communities that moved culture this year.”

According to the report, the subgenres that have been thriving this year include Afrobeats, plugg, drill, phonk, UK dance, SoCal soul, digicore, Brazil funk, Jersey club and industrial techno.

To pick the styles, SoundCloud dug into its data to find out what's growing and what's coming next.

“You can actually pinpoint when things become movements. You can pinpoint through data when people start talking about things, when people start using specific hashtags to tag their genres. It's pretty incredible,” Wong said, adding “No one should be familiar with every genre because that's just impossible.”

The campaign is presented in a short video exploring elements behind each sub-genre and features interviews with some of the artists.

Below are SoundCloud Top 10 scenes of 2022:

• Afrobeats: Originating from West Africa, Afrobeats is exploding worldwide on the platform with artists such as Burna Boy, Wizkid and Tems among its biggest purveyors.
• Plugg: Originated in the mid-2010s with the Atlanta-based BeatPluggz producer collective, it has inspired several international scenes most notably in Brazil and France. Plugg uploads are up 75% compared to 2021 on SoundCloud.
• Drill: The hip hop subgenre originated in Chicago and spread to London, New York and beyond.
• Phonk: With roots in ’90s Memphis and Houston hip hop, phonk's new wave, known as drift phonk, is finding popularity from the US to Eastern Europe. Phonk grew 353% compared to the year before.
• UK dance: Dance tracks from Ireland and the UK have made a chart impact this year as well as soaring on SoundCloud.
• SoCal soul: Emerging R&B artists in California are pushing the genre with a blend of hip hop, jazz, and soul.
• Digicore: It was developed in the late 2010s and is usually derived from trap. Digicore is shaped by the world of Discord servers, Minecraft and YouTube beat tutorials.
• Brazil Funk: Based on global sonic roots reflecting the diverse population of Brazil.
• Jersey club: The electro club music originated in Newark, New Jersey in the late 2000s. It was pioneered by DJ Tameil and other members of the Brick Bandits crew, who were inspired by Baltimore club's uptempo hybrid of house and hip hop. The subgenre has influenced the likes of Drake.
• Industrial techno: BPMs have increased on average by 10% since the beginning of 2018.

SoundCloud has a reputation for helping many underground artists cross over to the mainstream. “SoundCloud feels like one of the last democratic places where you can truly understand where music starts to happen,” Wong said.