Spotify celebrates EQUAL Pakistan’s Second Anniversary

Spotify’s signature program, EQUAL Pakistan, dedicated to bringing some of the finest women musicians from the country into the spotlight, marks its second anniversary in March. In celebration, Spotify is treating its listeners to an exciting data mix that showcases the evolving landscape of female representation in the country’s music industry over the past year.

To date, Spotify has added more than 6,900 women artists to EQUAL playlists and supported over 1,000 ambassadors in their home countries and beyond through editorial, partnerships, and marketing. EQUAL artists received 1.3 billion editorial streams within their first month of joining the program. In total, the EQUAL hub has generated over 31 billion editorial streams across 1 billion listening hours. In 2023 alone, more than 14.8 million artist discoveries were made through EQUAL playlists, and EQUAL artists received over 11,800 total editorial playlist adds.

“EQUAL Pakistan’s anniversary is a celebration of the resilient, towering women creators that shape the fabric of our music industry, and with EQUAL Pakistan, we aim to amplify these creators so that they can take more space,” said Rutaba Yaqub, Spotify’s Senior Editor for Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. “Over the past year, there has been more than a 25% increase in streams for local women artists in 2023 globally, compared to the previous year, whereas, there was a visible increase in local consumption of local women artists experiencing a 44% rise in streams in 2023, emphasizing their growing influence and appeal among local listeners.”

According to the data revealed by Spotify, Asteria witnessed an astounding 408% growth and Hareem Rashid experienced a significant surge of 281% in monthly listeners within just one month of being featured as the EQUAL Pakistan ambassadors for October and November 2023, respectively, demonstrating substantial amplification of some of the freshest voices budding in Pakistan. Tina Sani, Aima Baig and Sanam Marvi also experienced the highest growth in listenership since joining the EQUAL Pakistan program.

The programming of local woman artists in Spotify playlists also saw a commendable 20% growth in 2023, reflecting a concerted effort of EQUAL Pakistan to showcase and promote their talent to wider audiences.

The presence of renowned names like Momina Mustehsan, Nazia Hassan, Quratulain Balouch, Abida Parveen, and Hadiqa Kiani in the top local women artists worldwide for 2023 underscores the global impact of Pakistani talent and Spotify’s ability to bring these voices to an international audience.

Continuing its mission to spotlight some of the country’s most talented woman voices through EQUAL Pakistan, Spotify has announced Zeb Bangash as the Ambassador for the month of March this year and featured her song “Lajpal Ali” on the EQUAL Pakistan playlist. With her captivating music, Zeb has garnered more than 100k monthly listeners across multiple countries, the top among which are India, Pakistan, USA, UK and Canada.