Kenyan music listeners increased heartbreak song streaming by 62 percent between 2023 and 2025 while love song listening surged 84 percent, revealing a cultural shift in how the country navigates Valentine’s Day celebrations, according to streaming platform Spotify.
The data shows Kenyans are curating emotional soundtracks that reflect both romance and loss, with playlist creation growing 58 percent between January 1 and February 4, 2026, as listeners prepare for the Valentine’s season ahead of February 14.
Generation Z (Gen Z) listeners aged zero to 29 years dominated the emotional playlist creation, accounting for 92 percent of yearn playlists, 89 percent of rizz playlists, and 78 percent of simp playlists on Spotify during the pre-Valentine period.
International artists Billie Eilish, Lord Huron, and Tate McRae led streaming among younger listeners seeking reflective music rather than upbeat breakup anthems. Locally, Bien’s Chikwere topped love listening charts, while Céline Dion and Westlife maintained strong streaming numbers among Kenyan audiences.
Heartbreak listening is almost evenly split between genders, with 51 percent of streams coming from females and 47 percent from males. Love song listening shows similar gender balance, indicating emotional processing through music has become a shared experience across demographics.
Older listeners favor calmer genres, with Quiet Storm emerging as the most-streamed genre ahead of Valentine’s Day 2026, followed by Vocal Jazz. The shift suggests romance is being approached with intention rather than grand gestures among this demographic.
Galentine’s-inspired playlists celebrating friendship skyrocketed 389 percent over three years between 2022 and 2025, averaging 71 percent year-on-year growth as friendship celebrations gain mainstream recognition alongside traditional romantic observances.
Podcasts provide context when lyrics alone cannot explain feelings. Julia Gaitho’s So This Is Love and Episode 86: SOuLMaTe from The97sPodcast became the most-streamed podcast content on Valentine’s Day 2025.
The most blended track in Kenya on Valentine’s Day 2025 was Cry for me by The Weeknd, as collaborative listening peaked with users merging different genres into shared playlists.
Spotify reported that Valentine’s Day 2025 marked the Blendiest day of the year globally, with listeners spending a record number of hours on Blend, a 21 percent increase compared with Valentine’s Day 2024. The feature allows friends and couples to create shared playlists automatically mixing their musical preferences.
The streaming platform launched The Blend Date, a new short-form series in Kenya, in collaboration with digital creator Kevin Maina, also known as MainaMind. The series transforms Spotify’s Blend feature into a playful exploration of musical chemistry through ten weekly episodes lasting 60 to 90 seconds.
The series features Maina going on dates with musicians, creators and fans to discover whether their music tastes align or diverge. Episodes are released on Instagram Reels and cross-posted to TikTok, featuring guests including Kenyan rhythm and blues (R&B) artist Njerae and storyteller Wixx Mangutha.
In Kenya, playlists containing the word yearn increased roughly 302 percent between January 1 and February 4, 2026, compared with the same period in 2025. Globally, the number of yearn playlists rose 170 percent over the same period.
Valentine’s Day has evolved from a single day of flowers and chocolates into a multi-week emotional season starting in early January and peaking just before February 14. The shift reflects broader cultural changes in how Kenyans express and process emotions around relationships.
Spotify transformed music listening when it launched in 2008. The platform offers over 100 million tracks, including more than six million podcast titles. The service operates as the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with a community of 626 million users, including 246 million Spotify Premium subscribers, in over 180 markets.
The data suggests Valentine’s Day in Kenya has become less about proving love and more about understanding it, with listeners choosing reflection over certainty. Music streaming provides a safe space for Kenyans to process complicated feelings around romance, heartbreak, and emotional recovery.
