{"id":9404,"slug":"itunes-number-one-never-on-apple-2026","title":"Titles that held an iTunes Store number-one position in an African market without ever reaching that market’s Apple Music songs chart, 16 August to 6 November 2026","source":"This desk's own daily collection of Apple's two public chart feeds (afw_chart_snapshot \/ afw_chart_entry): the iTunes Store Top Songs RSS feed, which ranks paid downloads, and the Apple Music Top Songs feed, which ranks streams","source_url":"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/gw\/rss\/topsongs\/limit=100\/json","source_type":"computed","method":"From the same 1,153 paired market-days as itunes-apple-purchase-streaming-gap-corrected-2026, filtered to iTunes position 1. A row qualifies only if its normalised title-plus-artist key appears on NO date of that market's Apple Music songs chart anywhere in the window, the same window-wide test used for never_slots. days_at_number1 counts the distinct paired dates on which that key held iTunes position 1 in that market. These are the most visible instances of the gap, ranked by days at number one, not a random sample. An earlier build of this list used the same-day absence test and consequently included one title, 'PRAY FOR ME' by Sunvera Scott in Uganda, which does appear on that market's Apple Music chart inside the window, and one title credited 3 days at number one which held position 1 on no paired date; both are excluded here.","unit":"count","license":"Afrobeats Wire's compilation and analysis are licensed CC BY 4.0. Rights in the underlying source data remain with the source named above.","confidence":"high","retrieved":"2026-11-07 13:48:53","n":14,"first_party":0,"columns":[{"key":"market","label":"Market","type":"text"},{"key":"iso2","label":"ISO","type":"text"},{"key":"title","label":"Title","type":"text"},{"key":"artist","label":"Artist","type":"text"},{"key":"days_at_number1","label":"Days at iTunes number 1, never on Apple Music","type":"number"}],"rows":[{"market":"Guinea-Bissau","iso2":"GW","title":"Sean","artist":"Foo Fighters","days_at_number1":61},{"market":"Gambia","iso2":"GM","title":"Sean","artist":"Foo Fighters","days_at_number1":26},{"market":"Ghana","iso2":"GH","title":"Saint Cecilia","artist":"Foo Fighters","days_at_number1":17},{"market":"Nigeria","iso2":"NG","title":"Me & U","artist":"Tems","days_at_number1":14},{"market":"Cabo Verde","iso2":"CV","title":"Conquest of Paradise","artist":"Vangelis","days_at_number1":10},{"market":"Niger","iso2":"NE","title":"\u0648\u0627\u0646\u0627 \u0627\u062e\u062a\u0631\u062a\u0643 \u0641\u0627\u0633\u062a\u0645\u0639 \u0644\u0645\u0627 \u064a\u0648\u062d\u0649 \u0631\u0627\u0626\u0639\u0629 \u0637","artist":"\u0627\u0644\u0634\u064a\u062e \u0645\u062d\u0645\u062f \u064a\u062d\u064a\u0649 \u0627\u0644\u0634\u0631\u0642\u0627\u0648\u064a","days_at_number1":10},{"market":"Niger","iso2":"NE","title":"Baby Can I Hold You (2015 Remastered)","artist":"Tracy Chapman","days_at_number1":10},{"market":"Cabo Verde","iso2":"CV","title":"Hotel California","artist":"Cham\u00edn Correa","days_at_number1":8},{"market":"Ghana","iso2":"GH","title":"Iron Rooster","artist":"Foo Fighters","days_at_number1":8},{"market":"Ghana","iso2":"GH","title":"Sean","artist":"Foo Fighters","days_at_number1":8},{"market":"Gambia","iso2":"GM","title":"Therapy","artist":"Asidik","days_at_number1":7},{"market":"Burkina Faso","iso2":"BF","title":"Ta pr\u00e9sence me suffit Seigneur","artist":"Agape Gabon","days_at_number1":6},{"market":"Cabo Verde","iso2":"CV","title":"What Goes Around...\/...Comes Around (Interlude)","artist":"Justin Timberlake","days_at_number1":6},{"market":"Cabo Verde","iso2":"CV","title":"YouTube","artist":"Happy Birthday","days_at_number1":6}]}