How Nasty C took over Spotify & Apple Music

No artist has managed to take advantage of the streaming era like Nasty C. He recently celebrated the news that his sophomore album, Strings and Blings, had gone double platinum (and that every track on the record had gone platinum) and this week it was revealed that he is Apple Music’s most-streamed South African artist of the last four years. He edged out competition from Joyous Celebration, AKA and more of the country’s biggest names. Take a look at the list below: 

Streams over physical copies

Nasty C’s sales strategy appears to lean heavily towards streams and the numbers speak for themselves. Strings and Bling is accredited with a total of 46,000 sales but only 6,000 of these (less than 15%) were physical copies bought in stores. The rest of his “sales” were actually streams (psst: 1,500 song streams = 1 album sale). Nasty C clocked an incredible 60 million streams for his second album which works out to exactly 40,000 sales.

An extremely digital fan base

Nasty C knows where his fans are. His tech-savvy fan base has no problem streaming his albums, with many of them willing to fork out the R60 for a monthly streaming service. One would assume that many of his fans are within close proximity to Wi-Fi services and can afford data (or rather, their parents can afford data!) needed to stream regularly.
 

Not only is Nasty-C pro-streaming; he’s also ANTI-PIRACY! Do you remember the time he called out a “fan” who had pirated a Tellaman album?

Through his legal resources afforded to him by his label, Nasty C is able to clamp down on websites and services illegally pirating his music. Look, there will always be those who can get what they want for free but Nasty C’s efforts to fight illegal downloads have made a difference in his sales. 

While Nasty has come out on top; he has had some help along the way. He’s featured on some of the biggest songs over the last few years, including DJ Maphorisa and Major Lazer’s Particula, Boity’s Wuz Dat and more recently, Tellaman’s Whipped. He’s returned the favour too; his smash hit SMA features the delightful Rowlene whose fan base flocked to stream the single millions of times. As much as he’s done on his own, his well-chosen collaborations have helped him gain even more mileage.

Read Next: Nasty C took on Jaden Smith!

Main Image Credit: Trace TV