Tems is ending the year with a bang as she tops the Billboard year-end Afrobeats charts.
According to Billboard, the Nigerian came out as the top artist on the U.S. Afrobeats Songs Artists list, which is commissioned as a historic first. The year-end charts rank all of the top entertainers in the respective genres as recorded by Billboard during 2022.
Tems, who recently had a big boost to her career after co-writing Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up”, sees her song “Essence” with WizKid, along with three other songs dominating the year-end top 10. These include “Free Mind,” “Higher,” at No. 7, and “Found,” featuring Brent Faiyaz, at No. 10.
The Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs year-end chart is calculated by official streams on subscription and ad-supported platforms of leading audio and video music services. It also includes download sales as computed by Laminate.
Burna Boy is the second artist on the Afrobeats list and is also the artist with the most charting songs for the year, with 27 songs charting during the year. His song, “Last Last,” made history as the first No. 1 Afrobeats song when the U.S. Afrobeats chart was introduced for the first time in July.
“Last Last” also topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart and remained on the chart at No. 5.
Producer, singer, and songwriter CKay, who rose to international fame with his song “Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah) took off on Tik Tok almost two years after its original release in 2019 and topped charts in the United States in 2021, rounded off the top 5 at number three. The song was also on the Hot 100 chart and was the No. 1 song on the weekly Rhythmic Airplay and Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
WizKid came in at No. 4, with much of his year-end charting success coming from his song “Essence,” featuring Tems. The song was released in 2021 but blew up across the African diaspora in 2022 as it sat at No. 3 on the U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart and later on the top five of the global music charts for more than eight months.
Another artist, Asake, rounded off the top 5 artists who released his album, Mr Money with the Vibe, which debuted on the Billboard Albums Charts with almost a million streams after one day.
