By Sadeke Brooks—
Despite becoming a rastafarian and only doing reggae for just some months, rapper-turned-reggae artist Snoop Lion has been enjoying strong presence on all the major reggae charts.
At a press conference in the United States in August, Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg), announced that he had been transformed into ‘Snoop Lion’. He claimed that he first got a blessing from Bob Marley’s son, Rohan, and then made a pilgrimage to Jamaica, where he formed a bond with the Niyabinghi branch of the Rastafari movement.
After releasing La La La that was done by Diplo and Major Lazer in June, Snoop managed to get a top spot on iTunes.
While many local artists are hardly seen on major charts, Snoop’s Reincarnated album that was released in April this year has definitely been maintaining a presence on major charts. Of 22 countries featured in the iTunes Store for Top 10 Reggae Albums, Reincarnated was placed in the top 10 for more than 50 per cent of the countries.
Doing well
In the United States and Belgium, the Reincarnated Deluxe Version took the number one spot. The album placed at number three for France, fourth for Germany and Spain, seventh in Belgium, second in Canada, ninth in Finland, fifth in Italy, third in Luxembourg and Switzerland, sixth in Netherlands and Portugal and eighth in Norway.
Despite the fact that Snoop has been doing well on these charts, Bob Marley’s Legend is still at number one on 16 of the 22 charts. Other albums from Marley that are still doing well are Babylon By Bus, The Very Best of Bob Marley and Greatest Hits.
European reggae singer Gentleman also showed up on a few of the charts with albums like Diversity and New Day Dawn. Meanwhile, Shaggy secured spots in Canada and Australia for Hot Shots and in Belgium for The Boombastic Collection. Damian Marley and Jimmy Cliff were also seen on a couple charts.
But iTunes is not the only chart that Reincarnated has been doing well on, as it is currently number one on the Billboard Reggae Albums Chart after being on the chart for nine weeks. This chart records the week’s top-selling reggae albums, ranked by sales data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The album also peaked at number 16 on Billboard 200, which measures the top-selling album among all genres. It made the No.1 spot on The New York Foundation Radio Network Music Chart for four weeks, and peaked at No.2 on the South Florida Reggae Album Chart for three weeks.
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