South African artists earned R504 million, roughly $30.69 million, on Spotify in 2025. Nearly 74% of that came from listeners outside the country.
That is a 28% jump on 2024 and close to double what the same catalogue earned in 2023, according to figures Spotify shared with TechCabal and ITWeb. The number was announced on 13 May 2026 at Spotify’s Johannesburg office, with Phiona Okumu, the platform’s head of music for Sub-Saharan Africa, presenting.
The genre carrying that money out of the country is amapiano. The trouble is where the money lands, and who it lands on.
The Numbers Behind the Surge
DSP means digital service provider, the streaming platforms that pay artists. On the biggest of them, South Africa is now the anchor of a fast-growing region.
- The IFPI Global Music Report 2026 puts Sub-Saharan Africa’s recorded revenue at $120 million, up 15.2% on the year.
- South Africa is 78.1% of that total, about $93.7 million, after posting 12.9% growth, per Music In Africa.
- IFPI South Africa recorded an 18% rise in streaming revenue for the local market in 2025.
- Spotify says South African artists were discovered by first-time listeners 1.6 billion times in 2025, a 40% increase on 2024.
The artist payout grew 28% while the local recorded market grew 18%. The gap is export. Premium subscribers in the US and UK pay higher subscription prices and carry higher ad rates than listeners in Johannesburg or Lagos, so a stream abroad is worth more than a stream at home.
Who Is Actually Streaming
Spotify Wrapped 2025 makes the shape of the scene clear. Amapiano producers, not vocalists, sit at the top.
- Kabza De Small was the most-streamed local artist again, with close to 200 million streams, per News24.
- DJ Maphorisa reached roughly 155 million on the back of the viral “Abantwana Bakho,” and Kelvin Momo cleared 71 million.
- South African acts held 70% of the country’s top 10.
- Kabza De Small’s “Bab’ Motha” debuted at No. 9 on Spotify’s Global Album Chart, a first for an amapiano project.
The export chart tells a different story. Tyla was crowned the most-exported South African artist, and seven of the 10 most-exported songs were hers. Nigeria now ranks among the top five countries streaming amapiano worldwide. The genre travels; its home producers mostly do not.
The Money Problem Nobody Names
Amapiano is the most collaborative genre in African pop. A single track routinely carries a lead producer, a co-producer for the log-drum bassline, one or more vocalists, and a guest DJ. Every one of them has a claim on the recording.
When the money is 74% foreign and arrives from a dozen markets in different currencies, that credit list stops being a formality. It becomes the difference between a producer getting paid and a producer chasing a spreadsheet for a year.
There is a second split in the audience itself. Domestic listeners still lean on Audiomack, YouTube, and Boomplay, where the discovery happens and the payouts are thin. The premium money sits on Spotify and Apple Music abroad. An artist who delivers to only one side of that divide is choosing between reach at home and revenue overseas.
Where a Distributor Earns Its Keep
DDEX means Digital Data Exchange, the industry standard for delivering a release and its credits to every platform in one clean file. For an amapiano record, DDEX-native delivery is what keeps a five-name split intact from Johannesburg to a Spotify server in London.
This is the case InterSpace Distribution makes to South African producers: deliver to the regional platforms where the fanbase actually listens, not just the three that Western-focused distributors prioritise, and carry multi-level splits so every collaborator on a log-drum track is paid from the same reporting dashboard rather than by a monthly bank transfer from the loudest name in the credits.
Amapiano won the export battle. The next fight is making sure the people who built the sound see the money it earns. For more on the regional-DSP gap, see our reporting on Nigeria’s Audiomack audience and Bongo Flava’s Boomplay economics.
