Talha Anjum tells haters to ‘work harder’ after being crowned Pakistan’s top artist on Spotify twice
Talha Anjum’s done it again. After dethroning Atif Aslam as Pakistan’s most-streamed artist on Spotify in 2024, the rapper has kept his place for the second year running, with the streaming service confirming his 370 million streams on Thursday as part of their annual Spotify Wrapped event.
In a celebratory Instagram post, Anjum said retaining the top spot did not surprise him. He said, he owes the win “to my hard work, to my fans and my team that has stuck by me all these years”.
The rapper then turned his guns on the haters and fired off. Calling out “the media and the industry”, he said he was surprised how they tried to “pull [him] down” and make people hate him for “being [himself]”. He said he faced “boycotts, bans, petty disses, legal notices, sham news articles and false narratives” from people who wanted to “see [him] fall”.
Anjum said, despite all of “their little schemes”, Urdu rap remains on top, “exactly where it was a year back”. He ended the note telling all those wanting to see his downfall to “pray hard and work harder” and that he’ll see them back here next year.
The rapper had a successful year with his latest album, My Terrible Mind, accumulating almost 84m streams on Spotify. His most popular song for the year, ‘Departure Lane’, racked up an impressive 46m streams from 7.5m listeners — averaging around six streams per person.
The year also had its share of controversies surrounding Anjum, principal among them being his Kathmandu concert in November, where a fan handed him an Indian flag — Indian users accounted for the largest national demographic among Anjum’s listeners this year — which the rapper proceeded to drape over his shoulders.
While Anjum described his actions on stage as a gesture of respect and love and vowed to do it again in a now-deleted post on X, the public reaction was mixed, with many seeing it as inappropriate at a time when Pakistan-India relations are at their lowest point in decades. The rapper offered an unconditional apology to Pakistani fans after being aggressively grilled on television by anchor Nadia Khan.
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