Spotify Wrapped celebrates the audio that defined our year, and the annual global marketing
campaign that accompanies it has become a cultural moment in its own right. In 2025, Wrapped
in Africa is a bold, dynamic experience that brings the story of your year in listening off your
phone and into the real world – from amapiano and Afrobeats to gospel, hip hop, country and
everything in between.
This year, Spotify is bringing back the fan-favourite features people already love, while adding
new experiences that spotlight how listeners across Africa moved, prayed, worked, partied and
rested with audio. Wrapped Party invites fans to dive into their stories with friends and family,
and 50 fan destinations worldwide give listeners a place to come together, celebrate their year
in music and feel part of something truly global.
From design to in-person experiences and data stories rooted in local listening, this is how the
2025 Wrapped campaign comes to life across Africa.
A modern visual mixtape for Africa
Before streaming, mixtapes and burned CDs were the original playlists: handpicked, decorated
and passed between friends, cousins and neighbours as deeply personal gifts. The 2025
Wrapped design builds on that tradition, turning a year of listening into a bold, dynamic visual
mixtape for more than 700 million fans around the world – including millions across Africa.
Every gradient and texture reflects that unpredictable mix of emotion and rhythm that makes
listening so personal. With a reduced colour palette, bold imagery and a blend of analogue and
digital aesthetics, 2025 becomes the most expressive and modern-feeling Wrapped yet. From
amapiano dance circles in Johannesburg to late-night studio sessions in Lagos and road-trip
singalongs in Nairobi, the look and feel of Wrapped mirrors how African fans actually experience
music – loud, layered and full of feeling.
Immersive real-world experiences – and an amagwinya road trip
The Wrapped creative campaign is live in more than 30 markets globally as Spotify moves
beyond traditional billboards to create immersive experiences that celebrate the artists who
defined 2025. Across Africa, installations and pop-ups bring Wrapped’s digital storytelling into
the real world with artist integrations, interactive photo moments and live performances for top
listeners.
In South Africa, Wrapped quite literally hits the road. Inspired by the heartbreak of reaching the
front of the line only to hear the gwinyas are finished – and the way Darwin Rev turned that
moment into a national mood with Amagwinya Aphelile – the Where Are the Gwinyas? fan
destination sends a Wrapped-branded amagwinya kombi on a multi-city road trip.
The truck travels through Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria, serving up gwinya
with a Wrapped twist – from fish fillet to bunny-chow-inspired curry fillings and classic snoek,
atchar and polony. At each stop, fans turn up their favourite Wrapped anthems, transforming the
kombi from simple food truck into rolling street party.
“Wrapped has always been about reflecting fans’ stories back to them, and this year those
stories from Sub-Saharan Africa are literally spilling into the streets. From the amagwinya road
trip in South Africa to the data stories coming out of Nigeria and Kenya, we’re showing that the
numbers behind Wrapped are really about how people here live, move and connect through
music,” says Spotify’s Head of Marketing for Africa, Sithabile Kachisa.
How Africa listened in 2025
Wrapped is ultimately about turning listening data into stories fans can see themselves in – and
nowhere is that more vivid than in Africa.
In South Africa, early mornings belonged to Ciza’s Isaka, with more than 46,000 fans pressing
play at exactly 6:00 a.m., turning sunrise into a shared soundtrack. Mafikizolo’s Uyoncengwa
Unyoko passed 14 million plays, proving some songs are built for repeat on both the dancefloor
and in the taxi rank.
In Nigeria, Fido’s Joy is Coming found its way onto more than 700 playlists tagged as sad, as
listeners reached for hope even when the mood was low. Davido’s With You amassed over 42
million streams, underlining the staying power of one of the country’s most beloved hitmakers.
In Kenya, Extra Pressure was added to fans’ gym playlists, turning workouts into high-stakes
training montages, while Njerae’s Aki Sioni crossed 3.2 million streams, transforming
vulnerability into a chart-ready strength.
Across the continent, these moments show how Wrapped transforms numbers into narratives.
The stats reveal not just what Africa listened to in 2025, but how, when and why it mattered –
from perfectly timed play buttons and weekday rituals to songs that travelled through
communities as gifts, prayers, jokes and declarations. Wrapped gathers all of that energy and
hands it back to fans as a story only they could have written.
