How your favorite influencers and artists could be buying fake YouTube views

There is a 45/55 split of YouTube advertising revenue where Google keeps 45 percent and content creators get the remaining 55 percent.

In March 2020, bongo flava icon Diamond Platnumz was hailed for reaching the 900 million views mark on YouTube soon after releasing Jeje. Three months later in June, the singer’s record producers surprised a bare-chested Diamond at his home with a cake; he’d made history by becoming the first sub-Saharan African musician to reach one billion YouTube views. 

Not long after, Diamond became the first East African musician to reach 100 million views on a single song with Yope Remix originally done by Afro-Congo musician Innoss’B. With most of his views coming from Kenya, the musician’s hard work and showmanship seem to have paid off as Kenyan audiences can’t seem to get enough of him. It was a long journey for the ‘Boy from Tandale’ who joined the platform in 2011 and has popularized bongo flava music for a decade. But what do the billion views translate into for Diamond?