ONE LOVE, MANY STREAMS: MARLEY FLICK DRIVES BIG DSP ACTION

Team Primary Wave is busting out the deluxe spliffs to celebrate the success of the new biopic Bob Marley: One Love and the boost it's given the late music icon’s catalog—not to mention a new song by YG Marley, the reggae trailblazer’s grandson.

The Paramount film scored a #1 bow at the U.S. box office and, according to Deadline, earned $71m by the end of its second weekend. It has now racked up more than $120m worldwide. In its first nine days the film had a 25% better showing than the Elton John flick Rocketman in its first nine days, and that smash socked away $96.3m before ending its theatrical run.

Audiences have clearly been opening up their streaming apps immediately after the film’s credits roll, because our abacus confirms that streams over the last week for Bob Marley & The Wailers spiked by 50% to nearly 45m. Marley’s hits compilation, Legend (Tuff Gong/Island), flew to #17 on our most recent album chart and remains in the iTunes Top 10. Island has also released a 17-song soundtrack to the film that collects material from throughout the Jamaican giant’s career.

Perhaps even more stunning is the runaway success of “Praise Jah in the Moonlight” by YG Marley, now #11 on Spotify’s global chart (it’s amassed north of 100m worldwide streams on the platform) and Top 25 on its USA rundown, and Top 10 on Apple Music’s overall singles chart. The song, which samples Bob Marley’s “Crisis” and was co-written by YG and his mom, Lauryn Hill, was released independently.

Primary Wave acquired a significant share of Marley’s publishing catalog in a 2018 deal reportedly valued at $50m. More info about that very fruitful partnership can be found here.

How big will One Love get, especially once people can watch it on demand at home while loading their bongs? How much more will the Marley catalog grow as a result? Will Larry Mestel (pictured) finally be able to grow dreadlocks? Stay tuned for the answers to some of these questions, and praise Jah.