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The MENA region (short for Middle East and North Africa) has been a place of mystery for very long with no official charts and very few certifications ever coming out.
This resulted in very little awareness of sales happening there. Luckily these days are now over with streaming taking over the industry.
In this article, we will list the most popular international stars in the region, where does your favorite one lands?
MENA streaming market
French platform Deezer has been available for a couple of years in the region and some might know that Spotify launched in many countries there in late 2018. Both still have very few users there yet.
The reason for this is simply that they are not in demand cause the MENA region has its own streaming service, Anghami.
This Lebanese service is now not too far from 100 million users that ever logged in total, although monthly active users are closer to 30 million at the moment.
Just like a few other services do, they do not show only streams of individual songs but also the total streams for an artist. So the obvious question would be who's on top?
After treating both China and India in a similar way, here we compile the most streamed artists in MENA list!
NB: All artists singing in French have been excluded from these lists since it's a heavily used language in North Africa, thus these songs can't be grouped with purely international artists.
To give you a point of reference, the top local artists on Anghami are Amir Diab, Elissa and Fayrouz. They range from 460-600m streams each.
Male Singers
The two top spots, very close from each other, are Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber. This is a surprise to none as they are both regarded as global megastars.
Drake on the other hand is viewed by many as a quite local North American artist but his ranking here really shows otherwise.
He is followed by Eminem and The Weeknd. Zayn is known for having many fans in this region, his placing here confirms it pretty well.
Urban music continues to shine further down the list with Post Malone and XXXTentacion inside the top 10.
Latin music is doing very well too with 4 artists inside the top 15 with Enrique Iglesias in in the lead at 7th.
Female Singers
This one is a big shocker! Sia isn't only the most streamed female artist but the most streamed overall among foreigners by a very good margin too.
Another surprising pattern here is that the top 15 female singers are doing better than the top 15 male singers. The situation is usually the total opposite on most streaming platforms.
The follow ups were to be expected with Rihanna and Ariana Grande at 2nd and 3rd with a tiny margin between them.
The list keeps on with global names like Selena Gomez, Adele and Taylor Swift.
Unlike the male ranking is Shakira the only Latin artist here.
Bands
MENA really likes Imagine Dragons it seems, they are usually outperformed by Maroon 5 and Coldplay on most regions but in this one they take the top spot with a good lead.
The two latter come in at 2nd and 3rd, both with solid streams too.
The rest of the list is quite a lot lower, with the 4th band at 52 million streams, only 40% of Coldplay.
This lower part of the list is dominated by very recent bands with Queen sneaking in as the only pre-2000s band to make the top 10.
Boy Bands / Girl Groups
One Direction were to be expected on top considering the high ranking of Zayn inside the male list.
BTS at 2nd is quite impressive, this ranking confirms their big Middle Eastern popularity shown in their global heatmap.
Then there are Little Mix and Fith Harmony right behind at 3rd and 4th.
After them there's a big drop in streams with the Backstreet Boys in the lead of many older boy and girl groups.
One would think if any other K-pop group than BTS made this list it would be Blackpink. But they are oudone by Twice by 3 to 1. This is because only their Japanese material is available.
DJs
Even if we excluded artists singing in French we still get a list topped by a Frenchman.
David Guetta is no stranger in this region! He leads a list dominated by stars from all over Europe with only 2 Americans making the top 10.
These are The Chainsmokers and Marshmello at 2nd and 9th respectively.
Hip Hop & R&B
As mentioned earlier is Urban music very popular in MENA with Drake on top. He is followed by Eminem.
Legacy
This list is perhaps the most diverse genre wise. It's still led by two pop artists.
These are Céline Dion and Michael Jackson. You could make the argument that Dion is only on top due to her French material but even without it she would still be good enough for 2nd.
They are followed by Linkin Park, Queen and quite surprisingly Frank Sinatra.
Two other surprises down the list are Julio Iglesias and Scorpions. Julio could be a sign that Latin music have been popular there for very long.
Non-English
I felt the need to make this a category too just to highlight how linguistically diverse the music consumption in MENA is, and French acts aren't even included!
The biggest shocker here is the Arijit Singh, a streaming monster from Bollywood who is dominating global YouTube lists 24/7.
Brazilian superstar Anitta would have been here too if we extended the list to a top 11.
100 most streamed International artists in MENA
Thank you. For some reasons, I expected more french hip-hop artists. I know they're popular in Africa and thought they were successful in MENA too.
A lot of those countries had no access to music at all until streaming happened.
woah LITTLE MIX WORLDWIDE LEGENDS! without promo or stepping foot there or conquering the us, that's what I call real IMPACT.
proud of Bangtan too, they will reach the top of these lists soon!
Hello MJD,
Once again it's a very interesting article !
Just to know, if you have put the French artists in this, who would be at number one ? Maitre Gims ? PNL ? I guess it's an RNB / hip-hop artist
They are excluded as they're not really international artists there since there's so many French speakers in North Africa
I haven't checked all French artists there but here are numbers for some of them:
Maitre Gims - 53.7m
Indila - 37.6m
Soolking - 30.3m
Stromae - 20.6m
PNL - 9.9m
Jul - 9.0m
Niska - 6.9m
Khaled - 6.0m
I noticed artists with origins in French speaking Africa perform the best as most white French rappers have pretty bad numbers. Orelsan which is one of the top rappers in France only got 130k streams for example.
Thank you for your reply ! As I guessed, Maitre Gims is indeed first ! Interesting, thank you !!
As an Arab I always thought what was the hype about Beyonce. She is definetly known. But the number shows that she isnt a top act like in the states.
No we always had a huge music market. With massive centers in Egypt and Lebanon. And thriving gneres in many all other areas. The Mena region also always had some access to international artists. my parents were huge fans to micheal Jackson and bee jees during their prime. The thing is that data of sales was not readly available Untill streaming. Arab Artist mentioned in this article have 20+ years career and still thriving.
Didn't you consider Celine Dion in non-english category since you put latino artist with both anglophone and latino materials.
I was looking for some american Legends as Bob Dylan, Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, etc... But where are official albums? I see only broadcast or live albums, but not official releases. Or I'm wrong?
There are many releases that don't show up if you access the service outside the MENA rgion. I checked for them witha VPN now and they are available within the region at least.
seeing ZAYN out there at the top with absolutely 0 promotion to his music is just wow
Good question. I wanna know her placing on non english list through her french material.
Is Celine still a Canadian or has she changed her citizenship since she's been in the USA for a long while?
God, y'all are so annoying with this silly "local" mess. Just because she's not high on this list in North Africa and the Middle East does not mean she's local. This is one specific region in the entire world, it's not even all of Africa.
Funny you guys fixed your hands to call her local all the while ignoring that even at number 55, she's higher than the majority of her peers on the list, bar Shakira. But she's so "local" right? Please.
Sorry I'm late, didn't notice your comment.
The reason I decided to not put Céline in the non-english section is that her English songs are getting much more streams than her French songs.
And there's no anglophone list, it's the overall list regardless of language except Arabic and French
You're correct. there were many international albums released there in the past, although based on the info we have they sold very little in comparison to what local artists did. The big ones like Amir Diab and Fayrouz sold many times more than any international act ever did there.
Very interesting to see Taylor so high on the list considering there's this narrative she is local
