Friendly neighbourhood Spotify

The Maldives has been sidelined by quite a few tech giants until the last decade, mainly because it is a small country, with a small population. Time and time again though, the people of the small island nation have shown in spirit to be otherwise. When it came to Spotify, raising their voice on international platforms have yielded the results the people were hoping for.

Earlier this year, Spotify had been released for the Maldives after months of internet campaigning by determined individuals around the nation. According to Spotify, their mission was to enable local creators to tap into Spotify’s vast global audience, and also to help fans from the Maldives to gain access to their favourite artists. Given how over 60 artists are already present and making their music available for the whole world, this mission is well on its way to succeeding.

Spotify gives artists the chance to truly understand their audience by various tools at their perusal. By learning more about their reach, the styles people enjoy and the elements that work best, all of which would give them feedback they would need to do better. These analytics include the anonymised geographical locations of their listeners, similar artists their fans are listening to, the number of real-time listeners, song performance data, and so much more. Those who pay attention to these numbers would learn how to better curate their work, to know what works and what doesn’t, and make it to bigger stages globally.

The listening trends of the Maldives since February 25th to May 25th however has been very interesting as well. According to Spotify, the top global artists Maldivians listen to include:

It has also been shown that Maldivians have a very wide preference in genre as well, spanning from south asian metal to dinner jazz. Spotify is home to not only music, but podcasts as well, and Maldivians have been observed to dabble in that as well.

As for local artists heard around the world, the statistics are something to be proud of as well. According to Spotify, the top 3 exporting artist include Equatic Vibe, Maatu, and Meynaa Hassaan, being listened to in countries such as USA, Malaysia, Canada, Russia, and the UK. This level of global outreach is reminiscent of the global success that was Zero Degree Atoll, and hopefully, this is only the beginning.

Spotify as a mobile application is now the most easily accessible, and also surprisingly cheap, portal to premium music and audio content from all over the world. To be finally allowed to deal with Spotify directly has given Maldivians quite a leg up in terms of creativity, and there the possibilities are nigh endless.

With more and more Maldivians utilising this opportunity, one might expect to see their names pop up with increasing frequency on international playlist selections and a rise in their global popularity. 

Mirah Ally, a young and rising talent amongst Maldivian producers, has compiled a playlist of Maldivian artists on Spotify, which you can stream here.