Lil Baby, Karol G Top Vevo’s 2022 Most-Watched Music Video Lists

Hip-hop star Lil Baby continued his reign as the most-watched U.S. performer on music-video service Vevo for a third time, with nearly 675 million views of his work, the company said. The deep-cut-turned-breakout-hit We Don’t Talk About Bruno, from the 2021 Disney animated film Encanto, was the most-watched U.S. video, with 240 million views.

On the global stage, Colombian reggaeton and Latin trap singer Karol G topped all artists with 2.76 billion views on Vevo. She also had the most-watched individual video, Provenza, which received almost 547 million views. Overall, Latin music stars did well worldwide in viewership, and hip hop stars led by Lil Baby thrived in the U.S. charts.

“Seeing who and what has resonated with audiences at such a massive scale is nothing less than fascinating, because these annual insights create a snapshot of what’s trending and current in music, as well as what’s happening in pop culture overal,” said Vevo’s SVP, content, programming and marketing JP Evangelista. “Fans come to Vevo to connect with their favorite artists, who shape everything from language to fashion to today’s social conversations – often through music videos.”

Lil Baby (Dominique Armani Jones), who just turned 28 this weekend, has had a fast run to the top over the past five years, with mixtapes, albums and top 10 singles such as Yes Indeed and Drip Too Hard. His second album, My Turn, indeed lived up to its name, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 album list and certified triple-platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America. Lil Baby also had a feature contribution on the Grammy-winning Kanye West song Hurricane. Lil Baby also has been named Artist of the Year in the 2020 AppleAAPL
Music Awards.

With all that, it was little surprise his music videos once again attracted a lot of attention, with In A Minute grabbing No. 2 on the U.S. top 10 most-watched videos, and Right On coming in at No. 4. Those songs bracketed Provenza on the U.S. list.

The 31-year-old, Medellin-born Karol G (Carolina Giraldo Navarro) won the Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2018 and has had a string of hits since, beginning with Ahora Me Llama, a project made with Bad Bunny.

But Provenza this year proved a particularly huge hit worldwide, bringing an “entirely new audiovisual project” with a more tropical sound to fans after a seven-month break for the artist. The music video featured an all-female cast, and messages of body positivity and empowerment. Its message and music clearly resonated, attracting about 43 million more views worldwide than No. 2 Bruno, from Encanto.

Overall, Karol G had about 270 million more Vevo views worldwide than No. 2 Shakira. The rest of the artists on the worldwide top 10 included few surprises: The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Imagine Dragons, Justin Bieber, J Balvin, Ariana Grande, and Christian Nodal.

Vevo, which is mostly owned by the Big Three record labels, is available through YouTube and as a stand-alone streaming service across most major distribution platforms, including Hulu, Roku, Samsung, Amazon Fire TV, PlutoTV, Apple TV, Roku, VIZIO, and Comcast’s Flex devices.

Though Vevo remains the biggest audience source, by far, of full-length music videos on the web, it now shares the king-making crown with TikTok. There, 15- to 60-second videos using soundtrack backing pulled from across recorded music, have become a dynamic discovery device for TikTok’s billion-plus users.

TikTok, however, pays music creators nothing beyond stunningly high viral awareness potential; YouTube and Vevo remain much more substantive monetization sources.

Evangelista suggested, as well, that musicians can take a lot of lessons from what worked best on Vevo’s platform this year.

“For artists, there are also key learnings for their creative and release strategies,” Evangelista said. “Music videos remain a critical tool for them to break through in a quickly evolving entertainment landscape, where capturing and sustaining attention to build fandom are the foundation for success.”