The BPI have revealed that rap and hip-hop accounted for over a fifth of all UK singles consumption last year. The data was released as part of the newly published ‘All About the Music 2021’, the 42nd edition of the BPI’s annual yearbook.
Although many people will be aware of the rising popularity of UK rap and hip-hop in recent years, it is the rate and scale of this growth which might not be as well-known. The genre accounted for 22% of all singles consumption in 2020, whilst its share in the album market was 12.2%. Both figures represent all-time peaks for the genre. Meanwhile, when the BPI released the same figures for rap and hip-hop in the UK in 1999, the genre’s share in the singles market was 3.6% and its share in the album market was 2%. Thus, the popularity of hip-hop and rap has effectively increased six-fold over the last twenty years in the UK.
Cited on the BPI website, multimedia broadcaster Jasmine Dotiwala commented on the genre’s stratospheric rise: “In the 90s, when I started working as a young Hip hop fan and TV presenter, I was told that Rap and Hip Hop would be a fleeting genre not to be taken seriously, especially the UK sound. Now it’s woven into the fabric of mainstream Pop culture – the power of Hip-hop and the influence of UK talent can be seen at every turn.”
She added, “Many of us have been privileged to have been allowed a seat at the table of Rap and Hip-hop culture by the Black community – the culture has given many people across various classes, ethnicities, locations and generations a career and chance to champion the music we love and enjoy.”
The new data also showed that domestic talent accounted for 33.6% of all rap and hip-hop consumption in the UK, an impressive stat for a genre that we have historically always looked towards our American cousins to produce. Now, artists like Stormzy, Dave, AJ Tracey, and J Hus have become titans of rap in their own right. Notably, with over 300,000 sales last year, Stormzy’s ‘Heavy Is the Head’ topped the UK’s international album chart for rap and hip-hop.
Such insights indicate a music scene growing in self-confidence; one that is becoming less likely to cater for its transatlantic counterpart and more unapologetically British. When we consider that it was not uncommon for British rappers to rap with American accents when the domestic hip-hop scene originated in the 1980s, the genre has truly come a long way in this country.
The comprehensive summary of the BPI’s newly-released data can be found here.
