DancehallMag Launches the Artist 100 — A New Weekly Chart for Dancehall and Reggae
DancehallMag has launched the Artist 100, a new weekly chart ranking dancehall and reggae artists on Spotify streaming, YouTube viewership, editors' input, a cultural-impact algorithm and fan votes. Week one is topped by Sean Paul, followed by Bob Marley, Vybz Kartel, Shaggy and Popcaan — and fans can rate artists on their DancehallMag profiles to influence future rankings.
(ReggaeVibeMedia.com) - Dancehall and reggae finally have a chart of their own that measures the whole picture. DancehallMag has launched the Artist 100, a new weekly chart ranking the genre's artists — and week one has Sean Paul sitting at No. 1.
The top five tells its own story. Sean Paul leads the first chart, followed by Bob Marley at No. 2, Vybz Kartel at No. 3, Shaggy at No. 4 and Popcaan at No. 5 — a mix of a living legend, a legend who never leaves the conversation, and the two biggest names in modern dancehall.
The chart is built to be harder to game than a stream count alone. Rankings combine Spotify streaming data, YouTube viewership across each artist's career and over the most recent three months, input from DancehallMag's editors, an internal scoring algorithm that assesses cultural impact, and votes from fans. Long-running careers and current momentum both count, so a veteran with a deep catalogue and a young artist on a hot run can be measured on the same chart.
"The Artist 100 celebrates artists' contributions to the genre and recognizes the talent shaping its future," DancehallMag said at the launch. "We want it to be a chart that fans, artists and the industry can trust."
Fans get a say in it too. Readers can rate their favourite artists on their DancehallMag profiles, and fan votes will play a growing role in the chart as more readers join in. DancehallMag says it will review the methodology regularly, add new artists as the scene grows, and refine how each factor is weighed — and that it is now on the path to tracking thousands of artists, including young and rising names.
For the diaspora audience, this is a standing reason to check in every week. The reggae and dancehall world has never had a single weekly ranking that tried to weigh streaming, video, editorial judgement, cultural impact and the fans together. Arguments about who is really No. 1 have been running for decades — now there is a chart to argue with.