Without the world’s largest music market factored into the chart, Brazil, Germany and Japan are among the countries producing artists with international crossover potential
After Warner Music released Mali-born French pop singer Aya Nakamura’s hip-hop-infused song “Djadja” in April 2018, it soared to No. 1 in France, Romania and the Netherlands, where Nakamura was the first French woman to top the Dutch chart since Édith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” in 1961.
Singing in her native French, Nakamura has scored three songs on the Billboard’s Global Excl. U.S. chart in its initial three-month run, including “Plus Jamais” (featuring Stormzy) and a remix version of “Djadja” (featuring Maluma) released in June, which has spent 13 weeks on the Global Excl. U.S. chart (peaking at No. 32) and 10 weeks on the Billboard Global 200 (peaking at No. 57).
While it’s true that hip-hop and Latin music have dominated
Billboard’s global charts since their September launch, pop music is far from monolithic. “There are two sides to the coin,” says YouTube trends manager Kevin Meenan. “On one hand, music has become super global and is traveling like never before. But we’re also seeing that local music still really resonates locally.”
In fact, the hitmakers in most countries are local, according to the findings of a YouTube analysis of the top 2020 acts in 10 world markets. (See charts below.) The video streaming platform —which counts over 2 billion logged-in users across 100 countries and 80 languages (and is a data provider for