Bob Marley remains king of the reggae charts this week but will Spice or Vybz Kartel take the top spot?
Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and The Wailers remains the number one album on the Billboard Reggae Charts for 83 weeks and counting, even with new music consistently coming out from reggae and dancehall artists. Having been featured on the Billboard 200 Charts for 676 weeks, “Legend,” released in May 1984 by Island Records, is the second album to spend 13 years on the charts. The first was Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, which stands at almost 1000 weeks on the charts.
The golden marker that many artists aspire to overthrow Bob Marley and The Wailers from the number one position on the reggae charts. Many artists have achieved this, and many have failed. Still, the album consistently stayed at the top of the chart by routinely moving 10000-13000 units weekly.
Over on iTunes, Bob Marley and the Wailers occupy 4 of the top 10 slots, including the number 1 and 2 slots with Exodus and Legend. Spice’s new album “10” is in 3rd. Rounding up the top 10 is Vybz Kartel’s Born fi dis at number 8, Damian “Jr Gong” Marley at number 9 with Welcome to Jamrock and Set in Stone by Stick Figure at number 10.
On the Amazon reggae charts, though, Spice and Vybz Kartel are neck and neck, with Spice holding the number 1 and 3 positions for 10 with both explicit and clean versions, respectively. Vybz Kartel’s Born Fi Dis comes in at number 2.
It is still in the early days for Spice’s “10” and Vybz Kartel’s “Born Fi Dis,” having just been released last Friday, August 6th. Both parties have been revving up their fan base to stream and purchase the albums, so it is expected that their standing will improve.
Spice recently shared a photo on Instagram, showing that she had over 55 million streams on Spotify. She captioned the post, “Besties thanks for listening my album continue with the support, let’s create history together and do what they say we couldn’t do #spicealbum10.”
Vybz Kartel had a similar post showing that he had just over 500k streams for his album “Born fi dis” on Spotify. He captioned the post, “@spotify now #Bornfidisprelude streaming everywhere!!!!!!!!!! @aikopondibeat @therealshortbossmuzik @hapilos #gazanation”.
A cited contender to top the reggae chart is LA-based reggae band, Iya Terra, with their new album Ease & Grace falling just short of the top ten Billboard Reggae Charts, coming in at number 11. They have, however, secured the top spot on the US Current Reggae Album chart.
Ease & Grace consists of 14 tracks and features the legendary Steel Pulse along with Alborosie, Tribal Seeds, Trevor Hall, Mike Love, Bobby Lee. Based on MRC data, the album’s total consumption from album sales and streaming is 974 units since its release on July 30th, of which 700k was audio streams and 5,000 video streams in the US.
