Davido stream deduction on spotify - Glitch or Stream Farming

Davido has always been in the light when it comes to representing afrobeat, his consistency has given him the second biggest fan base in Africa, second to Wizkid.  As of April 2, 2025, Davido had over 8 million monthly listeners, and his top ten most-streamed songs on the platform collectively exceeded 792 million streams.

Davido is trending recently and it is not because of beautiful melodies or his upcoming and anticipated Album "Five" but because of possible stream fraud in the music industry. 

It's no news about the banter between the 30bg and Wizkid Fc, and this has made  the Wizkid fan base always accuse Davido of stream farming because of the mysterious statics high stats for stretch five days (315,072) on his singles Awuke late 2024.

What broke the camel's back was earlier this January when  Spotify deducted 3 million streams from his Album single Awuke, which had a total stream of  28 million  as of that time and likewise deducted 1 million from the hit single Funds. Although there was no official statement from spotify on why this was done a lot afrobeat listeners believed that it was because of stream farming.

On April 2nd, davido started trending for the same news again, his new single which he released “Be there still” had not been doing well since release. It notably had a low first day stream compared to Funds and Awuke, Wizkid Fc noted that Davido might resort to stream farming again.

Spotify had deduct Davido streams again on the following music; 

• Funds - sportify removed 654,089 streams
• Be There Still -spotify removed 1,965823 streams
• Awuke - spotify removed 1,120133 streams

Funds, Awuke and Be there still sportify chart as of 1st of April

Funds, Awuke and Be there still spotify chart as of 2nd of April

Fans had shown mixed reactions, Ola on X  believed it to be a glitch, stating that if Davido wanted to stream farm he would do it well and his opponent won't survive it. 

Jeff from x said “now we all agree that Davido buys Spotify stream yeah? This useless Nigeria blogs wont post this cus Davido is on their payroll”

While it is evident that the stream deduction is because of possible stream fraud, it might also be due to the new policies introduced by Spotify, that during streaming, repetition of songs without any breakage will be considered bot streaming.