Every December, streaming platforms hand us a breakdown of our listening and viewing life over the past year. In 2025, Spotify’s Wrapped and YouTube’s newly launched Recap did exactly that: giving users around the world a chance to look back on their music taste, favourite creators, and content habits.
Globally, the 2025 Wrapped report from Spotify revealed a massive surge in engagement: over 200 million users engaged with Wrapped within 24 hours of its launch and a 19% increase over 2024.
Meanwhile, YouTube officially rolled out its first-ever Recap feature, offering personalised year-in-review summaries that show your top channels, trending content themes, and even assign a “viewer personality” based on your watch history.
In Kenya, these global patterns blend with a decisive shift toward homegrown sound. According to Spotify’s 2025 data, Kenyan listeners clocked more than 180 million hours of streaming this year, and many of those hours went to local artists.
The most-streamed Kenyan song of the year, Aki Sioni by Njerae, signals that Kenyan music fans are embracing a new wave of voices.
New names like Toxic Lyrikali and Watendawili also broke into Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed local artists, proving that 2025 wasn’t just about nostalgia: it was about sound evolution and fresh talent finding space.
Legacy acts such as Bien, Wakadinali, and others while still firmly present are now sharing the spotlight with vibrant newcomers.
Wrapped and Recap don’t just show numbers, they turn data into identity. Users discover a “music personality” or “watch-history persona,” like “The Mood-Setter,” “The Nostalgic Listener,” or “The Skill-Seeker,” and these playful labels help people connect emotionally with their habits.
Social media amplifies the effect, as screenshots of wraps flood timelines, fueling friendly comparisons, debates, and memes.
The dominance of local artists in Kenya is more than popularity; it’s cultural reclamation, signaling that audiences are hungry for stories, voices, and rhythms that reflect their own lives.
The sharp rise in streaming among younger listeners, particularly 18–24-year-olds, shows a generational tilt that’s open to embracing both local sound and global genres.
YouTube’s 2025 Recap goes beyond music, mapping out what kind of videos people consumed most.
From music videos to lifestyle clips, tutorials, and trending shorts, Recap helps creators and media houses see what resonated this year. For journalists and storytellers, Wraps and Recaps are more than just stats; they’re a window into youth culture, shifting tastes, and digital identity.
2025 has shown that music and content are personal diaries, yet when viewed collectively, they tell the story of society itself.
Wraps and Recaps reveal how people live, what they care about, and what defines their leisure moments.
They offer insight into connection, identity, and the evolving culture of digital consumption. As a storyteller, you don’t just report what people listened to or watched, you capture what they felt, who they were, and where they’re headed.
