Independent Arabic music has no shortage of listeners or opinions, but very little published data. The Mazufa Index is a small, honest contribution: a weekly ranking of the recordings in the Mazufa catalogue, built from the reports the stores send us, and a yearly review that puts the fifty-two weeks together.
What the Index is
The Index is published every week on the same day. It ranks the recordings distributed by Mazufa by their share of the listening the stores reported for the catalogue that week. The list shows the top twenty, from rank 20 up to rank 1, with artist, title, movement since the previous week and weeks on the list.
Once a year the weekly lists are combined into the yearly review. Both are published in Arabic and English with the same figures.
How it is built
The Index is built from delivery data, not from opinion and not from a single store. The method is fixed and printed with every edition.
- Store reports for every recording in the catalogue are aggregated across all stores that reported for the week
- Each position reflects a recording's share of the catalogue's total reported listening; recordings are compared within the Mazufa catalogue only
- No revenue is published; the Index shows ranks and movement
- Artists are named from rank 20 up; nothing below rank 20 is published
- A store that reports late is included in the week its data arrives, and the edition names the missing stores
- A position cannot be requested or negotiated; a person checks the ranking before it goes out
The yearly review
The yearly review is published once the last week of the year has been reported. It combines the weekly positions, so consistency over many weeks counts as well as a short peak. It names the artists and recordings of the year, the countries that listened most, and the share of listening from the year's releases as against the back catalogue. Where a weekly edition was corrected, the review uses the corrected figures and says so.
How press and platforms can cite it
Journalists, broadcasters, playlist editors and platforms are welcome to quote the Index. We ask for a few things so that readers are not misled.
- Call it the Mazufa Index and name the week or the year of the edition
- Say that the ranking covers recordings in the Mazufa catalogue, so it is not read as a chart of all Arabic music
- Quote positions and movement as published; do not merge them with other sources into a new ranking
- Use the artist and title spellings as printed; they match the names on the stores
- Platforms that show the Index inside their product may receive it as a structured file with identifiers, under a short written permission
How to receive it weekly
The weekly edition and the yearly review are sent by email to anyone who asks through the form on this page, on the day of publication, with a note on any correction or missing store. Platforms that want the data in a structured form say so in the request, and a person replies with the format and the permission that covers it.
Artists in the catalogue do not need to subscribe. A recording that enters the top twenty is reported to its artist with the edition.
What the Index is not
The Index is deliberately narrow, and its usefulness depends on being clear about that. It is not a market chart: it does not rank all Arabic music, all independent music or all music in any country, only the recordings Mazufa distributes. A recording outside the catalogue is not missing because it performed poorly, but because the data is not ours to publish.
It is not a measure of revenue, and no money figure is published or implied by a position. It is not the chart of any single store, not a promise about future performance, and not an endorsement of one artist over another.
Questions
Why is a well-known Arabic artist not in the Index?
Because the Index covers only recordings distributed by Mazufa. An artist whose recordings are delivered by someone else is outside the data, whatever their audience. Every edition says so.
Can an artist ask to be included or moved up?
No. A recording enters the Index by being in the Mazufa catalogue and takes its position from the store reports. Nobody at Mazufa can place a recording. If a figure looks wrong, we re-check the reports and publish a correction if needed.
Does the Index show stream counts or revenue?
It shows ranks, movement and weeks on the list, and in the yearly review the share of listening by country and by release year. It does not show revenue or the raw store figures behind a position.