Reggae's performance in the worldwide music sector in the first quarter of 2022 garnered a little over 1 billion streams. These observations were made by Louditup online magazine. The report also noted that Between January and April 2022, there were 1.6 million radio spins globally and 358 million views on YouTube for the genre.
Louditup states there are 7,600 Reggae musicians classified as "professional or professionally aspiring" throughout the world. However, just 76 of the worldwide recognized Reggae musicians garnered 33% of the streams.
Louditup noted that analytics source viberate.com states that the reggae musical umbrella contains five commercially recognized subgenres: dancehall, roots reggae, dub, ska, and reggae fusion.
They also noted that reggae placed 20th out of the 20 commercially recognized mega genres, a far cry from its peak of #12 just two years earlier.
According to Louditup, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Brazil continue to be the top five reggae consumers. However, the genre's global market share fell to 0.57% in Q1 2022, compared to 0.65% in the same time in 2021, representing a 14% drop in its global market share.
This number is terrible news for Jamaica's domestic sector, accounting for 11%, or 853 of the 7,600 globally recognized musicians. The report concluded;
"The assumption by some critics is that reggae is losing its market share to #19 ranked African music, more specifically its sub-genre afrobeat, which has since the start of the year consistently delivered radio ready singles with big mainstream potential.
Others blame the loss on what some critics fingered as the "low quality" output of the new wave sound aptly called "traphall", which many remarked has taken a tangent from the traditional expectations of reggae and dancehall consumers at home and aboard with its dark, grime tinged, hip hop infused soundscape."