A new London Rapper gets a sweet, sweet Drake boost, a new Latin artist takes the salsa community by storm, a developing SoundCloud success story and much more bubbling up on the Pandora Predictions Chart.
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Guest post by Emily Blake of Next Big Sound
On this week’s Pandora Predictions Chart, we learn that a Drake co-sign can go along way. Wait, no, we already knew that. But what we do learn is that there’s a new Latin artist in town who’s making serious waves in the world of salsa and that people are definitely not tired of listening to “Bad and Boujee” quite yet.
Read on for more standouts from the Pandora Predictions Chart.
GIGGS gets in Drake’s good graces
A sudden uptick in Twitter followers, a flurry of Twitter mentions and a spike in Wikipedia page views? That’s the power of Drake, apparently.
London rapper GIGGS has been making moves in his home country for a few years now, with his latest album, Landlord, hitting #2 on the U.K. Albums Chart. But it was this week that he started making headlines in the States after the Toronto rapper — and the most popular artist on Pandora — brought him out onstage at London’s O2 Arena during his second show on his Boy Meets World Tour. After Monday night’s show, where GIGGS performed Landlord standout “Whippin’ Excursion,” he saw increased reach and engagement on social media, with a 538.1% week-on-week increase in Twitter mentions, a 123.6% week-on-week increase in Instagram followers, and a 93.5% week-on-week increase in Wikipedia views.
It was enough for GIGGS to debut on Predictions this week at #5. That marks the fourth-highest debut on the chart ever. Three artists have debuted on the chart at #4: Tappers JayMoney and Anik Khan and EDM producer Getter.
Rolf Sanchez
It was six years ago Rolf Sanchez was a finalist on X-Factor Holland, and now three of his songs have hit #1 on the Billboard Tropical Songs Chart with “Que Se Siente,” “Por Si No Te Vuelvo A Ver” and 2016’s “Vas a Entender.” And now, it looks like he has another tropical hit on his hands with the month-old “Paso a Paso,” which saw a week-on-week 258.5% increase in spins on Pandora.
In addition to an uptick in spins, Sanchez, who lives in the Netherlands and is of Dominican descent, also saw a 179.9% week-on-week increase in Thumbs Up, as well as a ton of activity on Facebook, where he saw a 317% week-on-week increase in page likes.
OmniBoi ‘Bad and Boujee’
This week, Los Angeles producer OmniBoi (maybe jokingly) tweeted about having to turn off his Instagram notifications, and we don’t blame him. This week, OmniBoi gained 21,132 followers on Instagram. The week before that, he added 48. He also saw 25,577 Likes and 1,496 comments.
OmniBoi has been sharing his bouncy pop music on SoundCloud for about five years now. So why is he hitting the Predictions Chart now? “Bad and Boujee,” that’s why. After remixing Migos’ inescapable hit — which currently sits at #3 on the Pandora Top Spins Chart — OmniBoi saw week-on-week increases of 635.6% in Twitter followers and 495% in Facebook page likes, paving the way for a solid debut at #15 on the chart.
Shelita Burke
This week we also welcome Seattle-bred, LA-based singer-songwriter Shelita Burke, who already made noise with “Belong,” a single she released in October. Now, she breaks through with “Penetrate,” released earlier this week. This week compared to last week, Burke saw a 72% increase in Pandora spins, a 62.1% increase in Thumbs Up and close to 25,000 new Facebook page likes — a week-on-week 317% increase.
Elsewhere on the Predictions Chart, Canadian electronic group Austra return to the chart after releasing their new album, New Politics, to critical acclaim. Declan McKenna rises 10 spots to #2 after he released his music video for “Kids” and also proved he has serious guts by covering Beyonce’s “Hold Up.” Returning to the chart this week are Syd Tha Kid, Christian singer Hollyn and pop singer and “Pretty Girl” Maggie Lindemann, at #7 #16 and #18, respectively.