Nigerian singer Chiké said that the Top 10 and Top 20 songs on the Apple Music Nigeria charts are manipulated, rather than organic. In a podcast by Bae U Barbie called Curiosity Made Me Ask, he shared that artists pay sometimes to pump up their streams for these songs, making them top through this so-called “rigged” system. He feels financial investments are many times behind chart successes.
Chike, however, said it was “a competitive market” that required many musicians to invest a lot of money in visibility. With the number of songs being dropped every day, “If you don’t take it to people, they might not really see it”, he added, saying musicians spend terribly trying to get their materials noticed.
According to Chike, climbing the charts could cost as much as $30,000, an amount he admitted would probably make his song a Top 10 song. However, he felt skeptical about these methods, as it did not necessarily denote the number of listeners interested in a particular song. He said not every song that made it to the top was because of money, but usually whoever had the biggest budget won hence calling into question the authenticity of such lists.
