Averaging 5,700 Spotify streams per day, every day for the past 6 months.
Just like the unique Trinidadian local treat the Jub Jub candy, Kes’ melodic lyrics sugar coated around the infectious High Street Riddim produced by Tano, has put a sweetness out into the world.
Jub Jub, released in December 2022 was launched in the thick of things, amongst a plethora of new Soca songs being distributed for the Trinidad Carnival season, but in just under 6 months, it is the first in the class of 2023 Soca to amass over 1 million Spotify streams. From the start, Jub Jub was trending at 40k streams per week – and it has not let up one bit.
The song is a worldwide hit with a heavy Spotify streaming originating from the United Kingdom and throughout North America. At this rate, the song is trending to hit over 2M Spotify streams by the year-end, inching very close to Kes’ top 10 streamed song on Spotify.
Considering it takes a Soca song on average 1.5-2 years to generate 1 Million Spotify streams, Jub Jub is currently trending 3x the average. All this reach, exposure and visibility without a music or lyric video and without a challenge for the Carnival Road March. This is a big tune.
Riding along the Jub Jub wave, there have been 3 notable weeks where the streaming increased by nearly 50% each time – jumping to the tune of 60k Spotify streams for the week.
The first peak coincided with Trinidad Carnival week. Although Jub Jub had a massive number of streams that week, it was dwarfed by the Spotify streams of the Trinidad Road March contenders – the 3 of them (Hard Fete, Come Home & Like Yuh Self) averaging nearly 85k streams. Just a month later, without losing any steam, the song’s the second peak was just as much as the first and this time Jub Jubs’ peers were averaging the same volume. The 3rd peak took place just 6 weeks later and once again Jub Jub and its peers were trending on Spotify on the same track.
The various Carnivals and festivals centered around Soca Music provide an undeniable accelerant that fuel tracks streaming volumes above-and-beyond their norm. We will see in the coming weeks as a number of the 2023 Trinidad Carnival fueled tracks reach the 1M Spotify stream mark.
While the Jub Jub trend looks like a bit of a heart monitor due to the various large carnivals and festivals that support Soca driving the streams up like a surfer’s wave, it was the launch of the song during its first six-weeks that gave it the Spotify streaming edge over its peers.
On launch day, the song was positioned on the Spotify New Music Friday Global Chart which gave it a significant boost to jump out of the gate during week 1 with +38K Spotify streams. That set it on the path of what appears to be the new-norm for Kes music – as many of his recent hits are on a path to 1m Spotify streams in a year or less.
After Jub Jub, Kes released a handful of songs, including some powerful collaborations with dancehall Kings Shaggy (Mood) & Busy Signal (HoneyComb) – both songs also trending between 5-6000 streams per day – still Jub Jubs’ popularity index on Spotify continues to rise. That alone speaks to the strength of the song and its ability to transcend audiences.
In addition to the massive streaming feat on Spotify, Jub Jub has also hit the charts on Apple Music & iTunes in 80 countries and garnered the #1 position in 10% of them:
- #1 on iTunes (All Genres) in Belize, Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda
- #1 on iTunes (Reggae) in Brazil, Grenada, and Norway
- #1 on Apple Music (Reggae) in Suriname and Niger
For Tano, Jub Jub is the first song off his debut album the High Street Riddim to hit 1 million Spotify streams. This is a milestone for the San Fernando producer, especially with the rate and pace of which the song has generated this volume. It is a standout.
The Jub Jub sound has encapsulated a bit of Kes and Tanos’ South Trinidad youth into a vibe that seemingly everyone is finding relatable “things nice when it rollin rollin and ah love how it feelin…” It seems everyone likes Jub Jub dahlin’
