How VersaBoard is compiled

VersaBoard ranks the top 20 tracks by weekly view change on YouTube. Weekly view change means the difference between a video's total view count at the close of one observation window and its total at the close of the previous one. It is a measure of movement in the last seven days, not of lifetime popularity.

Only the official upload of a track is counted. That means the video posted by the artist, their label, or their distributor. Where an artist has both a topic channel auto-generated by YouTube and a channel they actually run, the channel they run is the one counted.

A track is counted once. Where the same recording exists as an official music video and an official audio upload from the same rights holder, the two are added together and treated as one entry. Where they belong to different rights holders, only the one the artist points to is counted.

YouTube is the only source. Streaming numbers from other platforms are not counted, not estimated, and not blended in. This is a limitation and we would rather state it plainly than pretend to a completeness we cannot verify. Zambia has no neutral streaming data provider, and a chart that quietly guesses at Spotify or Audiomack figures would be exactly the kind of unverifiable claim this publication exists to avoid.

A track qualifies if the lead or a co-lead credited artist is Zambian. Zambian means holding Zambian nationality or having built their career primarily in Zambia. Artists in the diaspora qualify.

A featured artist alone does not qualify a track. A Zambian verse on a Nigerian lead artist's single does not put that single on VersaBoard. A Zambian lead artist featuring a foreign guest does.

Producers do not qualify a track on their own, but a Zambian producer credited as a lead artist on their own release does.

Language is not a criterion. Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga, Lozi, English and any other language are treated identically. Genre is not a criterion either. Kopala rap, Zed beats, gospel, amapiano, afro-pop, rock and everything else compete on the same chart.

Nationality calls are recorded in The Record, our public archive, so a decision about whether an artist qualifies is checkable rather than a matter of our word.

The window runs Monday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 UTC. Week numbers are ISO week numbers, so week 30 always means the same seven days no matter what day we publish.

View counts are read at the close of the window on Sunday. Readings are taken as close together as practically possible so that no track gets a longer count than another.

The chart publishes on the Tuesday following the close of the window. The extra day exists because YouTube view counts continue to settle for a period after they are first displayed, and publishing into that settling period produces numbers that quietly change underneath a chart that claims to be final.

Each week gets a permanent URL of the form /versaboard/2026/30. That page keeps showing what the chart said in that week, for good.

Fan uploads, reuploads and reaction videos are excluded. They are not the artist's numbers and counting them would reward whoever has the most active reuploaders rather than the biggest week.

Lyric videos posted by third parties are excluded. Official lyric videos from the rights holder are counted.

Live performance footage, interviews, snippets, behind the scenes clips and DJ mixes are excluded. The chart measures released tracks, not coverage of an artist.

Compilations, playlists and full album uploads are excluded, because there is no way to attribute their views to a single track honestly.

Tracks whose view count moves in a way that is inconsistent with their engagement are held back from the chart for the week and looked at manually. Where we conclude the movement is not organic, the track does not chart that week. This is a judgement call and we will say when we have made one rather than let a track vanish without explanation.

Nothing is excluded because of who the artist is, who they are signed to, what they have said about us, or whether they advertise with us. Chart placement is not for sale and never has been.

Where two tracks have the same weekly view change, the tie breaks in this order.

First, the track with the higher total view count for the week takes the higher position. Second, if still level, the track that is climbing takes the higher position over one that is falling. Third, if still level, the track with fewer weeks on the chart takes the higher position, because the newer record is doing more with less time. Fourth, if still level, the track with the better peak position takes it.

Exact ties surviving all four are recorded as a shared position and the next position is skipped, the same way a standard chart handles it.

If the chart is wrong, we fix it and we say so. A corrected week keeps its URL, gains a dated correction note, and the change is described in plain terms: what was wrong, what it is now, and what caused it.

We do not quietly re-import a week and hope nobody kept a screenshot. Silently editing the record is the failure mode that costs a publication the only thing it cannot buy back.

To report an error, write to versacorp@versaedits.com with the week, the track and what you believe the correct figure is. Corrections that change a position are actioned within the week.

VersaBoard is compiled by VersaCorp Media. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in partnership with any record label, distributor, streaming platform, radio station, promoter, or awards body.

No artist, label, or brand can buy a position, buy a removal, or see the chart before it publishes. Nobody outside the newsroom sees it early.

The chart is free to read, free to cite, and free to reproduce with attribution. It exists because Zambian music has never had a neutral, checkable measure of what a week actually looked like.