A few years ago, landing a track on RapCaviar was akin to winning the lottery. Today, the same placement feels closer to a consolation prize. Streams are down, algorithms are up, and the machinery of music discovery is quietly being re-engineered while artists attempt to keep pace.
For Let’s Get Local, this shift is uncomfortable to confront. Our publication exists to share music, to tell readers “here’s something new, here’s what we think.” Yet the expansion of algorithmic discovery has diminished the critic’s voice, and even the human curator’s influence, within the larger machine. That tension goes against the very grain of our mission. It is also the reason we have refocused our work: moving away from hype cycles or reviews alone, and instead sharpening our emphasis on education, critique, and industry analysis. Algorithms may be absorbing music discovery, but that makes it all the more urgent to understand why.
The Playlist Decline
Spotify’s editorial playlists are no longer the reliable engines of exposure they once were. Bloomberg reports that RapCaviar, the service’s flagship hip-hop list, saw streams decline by as much as 50% in the past year. Dance Hits dropped around 60%; mint, one of Spotify’s largest electronic playlists, fell by 40%. The former promise was clear: secure a slot, and watch streams surge. Today, the figures are sobering.
The reasons are both strategic and behavioural. Spotify has invested heavily in algorithmic tools — Discover Weekly, Release Radar, Daylist, and its AI DJ — which funnel listeners away from centralised, editor-led playlists. At the same time, users themselves have turned toward self-curation. Industry data suggests fewer than 2% of all Spotify streams now come from editorial lists. By contrast, more than half originate from listener-made playlists, and about a third from algorithmic feeds. The human-curated playlist, once the main stage, has been relegated to the sidelines.
Not all platforms share this trajectory. Apple Music continues to treat editorial curation as a core feature, with New Music Daily and The A-List series still shaping discovery across genres, while mood-driven sets maintain a sense of hand-picked curation. YouTube Music has opted for a hybrid model, combining algorithmic personalisation with more experimental editorial playlists: from Flow Superior, its answer to RapCaviar, to idiosyncratic collections like Jazz For The Hip-Hop Generation. Spotify’s pivot remains the most pronounced, but the landscape as a whole shows editorial influence narrowing, not disappearing.
The PR Illusion
If playlist placements no longer guarantee reach, does traditional publicity fill the gap? Only partly. A feature in a magazine or on a respected blog can reinforce credibility, but it rarely drives streaming numbers directly.
The so-called “blog era” of the 2010s once gave unknown artists a pathway to visibility. Now, most press circulates among existing fans rather than drawing new ones. PR has become less about sparking discovery and more about building an artist’s ecosystem: demonstrating value to promoters, bookers, and industry stakeholders. That is meaningful, but it is not immediate.
The costs are also considerable. In South Africa, artists can expect to pay more than R18,000 for a radio plugging and PR campaign, with DSP pitching offered as an add-on at around R9,500 per track. A full campaign can, therefore, exceed R27,000 for a single song. For many independent artists, this outlay equates to the entire project budget. Plugging, in this context, functions less as a growth engine than as an investment in credibility — one that is out of reach for most.
South Africa’s Dilemma
In Cape Town, where music infrastructure is fragile, these shifts resonate with particular force. The editorial playlist system already operates under extreme scarcity: 100,000 new tracks are uploaded to DSPs daily, while Spotify’s frontline playlists can collectively host only about 350,000 songs at any given time. The odds of inclusion are minuscule. And the dominance of major labels, which occupy 85% of key playlists such as RapCaviar and Today’s Top Hits, tilts the balance further against independent musicians.
PR provides no easy alternative. A favourable write-up will not send local fans rushing to Spotify; the causal link is missing. Instead, gains more often come through direct channels: viral TikTok moments, carefully nurtured online communities, or creative fan engagement. Discovery has become algorithmic and increasingly indifferent to traditional gatekeepers — whether playlist editors or music journalists.
Where Next?
For Let’s Get Local, the rise of algorithmic dominance strikes at the heart of what we value: human taste, critical voice, and cultural context. Yet denial is not an option. The evidence is clear: playlist placements no longer secure exposure, and PR rarely drives streams. For artists, both should be treated as markers of credibility rather than levers of growth. The real momentum lies in combining narrative-building with algorithmic traction and direct audience connection.
For music publications, the challenge is similar. Relevance cannot come from echoing press releases or cataloguing new releases alone. It requires critique and context: asking whether freestyling still matters, whether Cape Town possesses a functioning music industry, or how structural shifts in streaming reshape artistic opportunity. If algorithms strip away meaning, then criticism must supply it.
The conclusion is unavoidable. Editorial playlists are waning, PR has shifted in function, and algorithms now dominate. But music is not a dataset. It is a cultural form embedded in people and places, including South Africa’s cities. As long as that remains true, there is work to be done: not to optimise for the system, but to insist that every track, and every artist, still carries a story worth telling.
