Masicka‘s ‘438’ album wins best Dancehall Album at the inaugural Caribbean Music Awards. Other Nominations in the category include, Spice “Emacipated”, Skeng’s EP “Beast Of The Era,” “In Too Deep” By Kranium and “Scrocha”by Sean Paul.
“438” released independently December 3, 2021 became the most streamed album by a male dancehall artist in the U.S. over a 12 month period 2021-2022 according to data provided to World Music Views by Billboard sales tracker Luminate.
The project earned 32,600 equivalent album units (SEA,TEA) in the US within a year. Of that sum, pure album sales in the US were 1,200 (together equaling total on-demand streams (audio + video) over its lifetime of 48.8 million).
With no major label backing at the time Masicka was quickly sought after by major U.S. record companies, a process which he says took over 15 months before he settled with the Manhattan based DefJam Records.
‘438’ was released via Genasyde/1Syde Records and features collaborations with Stefflon Don, Popcaan, Dexta Daps and Sean Paul.
Upon its release 438 moved 5,164 equivalent album units from sales and streaming in the United States during its first three weeks in December 2021.
This included 2,864 units (733 copies) sold during the first week of release. His first week total consumption also included 400 in song sales, 2,781,700 from on-demand audio streams, and 123,400 from on-demand video streams according to WMV’s Luminate correspondence.
438 debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart and spent a total of 7 weeks on the chart, an achievement surpassed only by top streaming artists Shenseea and Koffee (30 weeks), among recent albums by Jamaicans.
The album streamed in the top 10 on the Jamaica Apple music chart for an entire year since its release.
Other dancehall artists such as Spice, Sean Paul, Vybz Kartel, and Usain Bolt, only spent one week on the sales and streaming-driven chart with their latest albums.
For greater context, legendary reggae-dancehall artist Buju Banton’s last album Upside Down 2020 released by Island Records and Roc-Nation in June 2020 has so far earned 53,000 album sales equivalent units with SEA, with TEA according to data provided to WMV by Luminate. Of that amount 11,000 units were pure album sales equalling 62 million total on-demand streams (audio + video).
Upside Down 2020 had debut in its first week at number 2 on the Reggae Billboard Chart after combined streaming and sales of over 2900 units, according to Nielsen/MRC Data.
For his forthcoming album on DefJam, Masicka says it is complete and will be better than ‘438’. “Same thing weh we always a come with good music, we have a studio full a music. In truth we have an album, a finish project, done and complete, the fans them can look out for that. I can tell you she its far better than 438 and this a sum wet the fans them can look out for,” he stated.
