Gospel artiste Mr. Gallimore is celebrating a reported iTunes chart breakthrough, even as the Jamaican reggae-gospel artiste continues to build a modest audience on Spotify.
Gallimore says ‘What a Hell’ reached No. 2 on the iTunes World Music chart, behind Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s recording of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. The video has racked up 46,000 views on YouTube since its release. The song has been buoyed by a controversy surrounding his depiction of Yaksta ‘burning in hellfire’ in the introductory interlude of Mr. Gallimore’s ‘What a Hell’ video.
“Yaksta had some things, he said he didn’t know me and that ‘God nuh have Zelle’ and a bagga things but the message for me is : the bible teaches that unrepentant sinners will suffer unending, conscious punishment, pain, or separation from God after death. That is what I want the youths to know,” Mr. Gallimore said.
“Don’t believe the lie. Don’t put any stock in the words of a Rastafarian who is now supporting chapping the line and scamming only years after talking about farming as a way of upliftment, remember, broad is the path to destruction.”
On Spotify, figures provided for this report show ‘Brokenness To Victory’ leading his visible catalogue with 21,173 streams. His monthly listener count stands at approximately 55.
Those figures measure different aspects of his audience: a song’s cumulative streams reflect plays over time, while monthly listeners represent its artiste’s recent reach. Neither is directly comparable with an iTunes chart position.
Other releases in Gallimore’s catalogue include ‘Sick In Ya-Sick In Here’, ‘Until The Day Comes’, ‘Never Get LukeWarm’ and ‘Me Nuh Like-I Don’t Like’. Individual streaming totals were not supplied for those recordings.
For the street-gospel entertainer, the reported performance of ‘What a Hell’ offers an encouraging milestone as he works to translate attention into a wider listening audience.
