Guys, we need to talk about this one.
Libianca’s “People” is on its way to surpassing one billion streams on Spotify, technically already there when you combine the additional streams from the different remixes and versions of the song, and what a journey this has been.
The Cameroonian American singer, born Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji, shared the news on TikTok over the weekend. What caught my attention, though, was not just the milestone. It was how she reacted to it.
It wasn’t your usual “thank you to my fans, I’m so blessed” milestone post. She said her lawyer and manager broke the news to her first, and her initial reaction was almost indifferent, until her lawyer reminded her that there are veterans in the industry, people who’ve been at this far longer than she has, who still don’t have a single song credited solely to them that’s crossed a billion streams. That’s when it hit different for her. Not as personal glory, but as proof of something bigger working through her story.
And when you know where Libianca was before “People”, that moment becomes even bigger.
Before the song, she says nobody in the industry really knew who she was. She was living in north Minneapolis, surrounded by the kind of environment where gunshots and police sirens were part of everyday life, recording with little more than her voice, her phone and some basic equipment.
She had no major machine behind her. No established industry connections. Just a voice, some songs and a lot of uncertainty about where all of this was going. At one point, Libianca says she even gave God an ultimatum, telling Him she would walk away from her faith if things did not change within two years.
Two months later, she wrote “People”, and then everything changed.
What made the song connect so deeply was probably the fact that it sounded like something people were already feeling but weren’t necessarily saying out loud. “People” is about loneliness, depression and the simple act of checking in on the people around you. Yet somehow, Libianca and her producers wrapped all of that heaviness in a groove that still made you move your head.
Then TikTok got hold of it. The song travelled. It was remixed with Ayra Starr and Omah Lay, later got versions featuring Becky G and T Pain, found its way onto the Billboard Hot 100 and reached Number 2 on the UK Official Singles Chart, becoming the highest charting African song on the chart at the time.
Libianca also became only the third female lead African artist to appear on the Hot 100, following Amaarae and Tems.
Related: Thanks To Viral Single ‘People’, Breakout Star Libianca Registers Billboard Hot 100 Milestone
But even before all of that, “People” had already shown that it was going to be different.
When it was released in December 2022, the song became the fastest African song to reach 100 million Spotify streams at the time, doing it in just 88 days and moving faster than Rema’s “Calm Down” had managed to.
The funny thing is that “People” didn’t necessarily keep moving at that same crazy speed. Instead, it stayed. That might actually be the more interesting part of the story.
Rema’s “Calm Down” featuring Selena Gomez became the first African lead single to cross one billion Spotify streams back in September 2023, roughly 13 months after the Selena Gomez remix was released. It has since gone past two billion streams on Spotify and crossed two billion views on YouTube Music, making Rema the first African act to reach that mark on the platform.
CKay’s “Love Nwantiti” has also quietly built more than 1.059 billion streams on Spotify. That is the company Libianca now keeps, and it is pretty good company.
What makes it even more interesting is that “People” didn’t just go viral and disappear.
People kept listening, people kept relating to it and people kept sending it to other people. The song has now spent close to four years finding its way into people’s playlists, conversations and memories, eventually turning what looked like a viral moment into a genuine long term streaming record.
There is also something interesting about Libianca’s relationship with the song itself.
She has spoken about people telling her that “People” helped them through difficult moments, but she has always been careful not to take credit for the healing. In her view, she was simply the person who wrote and sang the song. Whatever it did for people was bigger than her.
That humility is probably one of the most interesting things about this entire milestone. Because a billion streams can easily become a conversation about numbers, records and charts. But at the center of “People” is still a song about noticing when someone isn’t okay, and that feels like the perfect place to leave this.
Congratulations Cameroonian’s very own! And if you haven’t listened to it in a while, maybe put it on again. Then check on someone.