Dovey Magnum In Tears Over Low YouTube Views, Implores Fans To Stream More
Dancehall temptress Dovey Magnum is imploring fans to stream her music more.
The Bawl Out artiste was in tears on Instagram Live this morning as she expressed disappointment in low streaming figures on YouTube despite the quality of her music.
“When I look at my numbers on my Vevo and what’s going on…I’m like, ‘What the f–k?’,” she said. “If I was supposed to really feed or pay my bills from f–king YouTube and Vevo I would have been broke, I couldn’t live. Mi have tears inna my eye because I put work in. I have more than one song that’s very good song. When I get a chance to perform I perform my ass off. A nuh just suck h–d song mi have. Mi have other songs. Why? What is the problem?”
She added, “Give me some more support with my streaming; I’m on Spotify, I’m on Audiomack, I’m on iTunes, I’m on YouTube. I don’t know why my Vevo views are like that even when my songs are f–king solid… So if anybody know how can I get my Vevo views up…mek mi know.”
The artiste has 328,000 followers on Instagram, but only 48,000 subscribers on YouTube. Her most recent release, Respectfully , has copped 21,000 views in two weeks.
Her prior releases have earned lower streams, like Suh You Did Tan (featuring Compass) which has earned less than 9,000 streams since its debut a month ago; Shuffle The Deck, which has a little over 7000 views since its premiere in November; the October release Ah My Life which has 8,500 views; and Foru, released in August, getting 17,000 views. Her most Vevo-streamed song of 2020 was Location, which has 1.8 million views. Overall, her most commercial record has been the 2018 hit Bawl Out.
During the emotional Live, Magnum spoke about her longtime dream of doing music, from being a little girl peering through bushes to observe women in dances, to being inspired by the liberated femininity embodied in acts like Lady Saw and Tanya Stephens. Magnum prides herself on having a catalogue which continues the legacies of these women, but said it is subpar music that gets the attention.
“Yuh have some disgusting bloodcl–t song weh nuh sound good…some terrible bloodcl–t song to the ears and dem a trend all f–king way, dem this and that, dem a number one, so mi know there is something,” she said. “Unno cya fool me, and mi nuh fraid a nuh b-tch… It’s been going like this for years and mi lowe it, but mi analyse it. When certain people drop a certain song it gone certain place and you a wonder, ‘What the f–k, it is total garbage’… and yuh have some real bloodcl–t song, different song weh sound so good, way better than that and dem a struggle. So it nuh haffi be something weh dem a do?”
Magnum’s musical journey has not been easy, and she revealed that 2019 was particularly challenging as she experienced a breakup that impacted her career in ways she did not wish to speak about. Added to that is the fact that she is an independent artiste with little help or financial resources.
“I don’t have a team…whatever money that I work, whatever money that I have, whatever money di man dem gi mi weh mi put towards mi things, dem mi use and mi do weh mi haffi do.”
She read suggestions given by fans to alleviate her plight, some of which were pretty wild. Someone suggested using obeah, no doubt a jab to deejay Spice who was recently accused of using rituals to be successful in dancehall.
Others suggested that she buy views, for which she said she has no money to do so. Then came a suggestion that she sell her soul to the mysterious Illuminati organization, a process for which she enquired about in jest. More feasible suggestions included Magnum collaborating with artistes and producers in other genres like hip hop, which she said is already in the works.
Veteran singer Ghost had a similar complaint in October, where he implored fans to stream his music as he, too, didn’t understand why his views didn’t reflect his following and musical legacy.