Behind every great song is a complex web of people, stories, and inspirations that span genres and decades. Today, Spotify is bringing those relationships to the forefront of the listening experience by revealing the intricate network of people and creative connections behind the music you love.
Now rolling out to Premium users globally, SongDNA is a new, immersive music experience built right into the Now Playing view. By simply tapping the SongDNA card, you can explore the writers, producers, and collaborators behind a song, see samples and interpolations that shaped its sound, and browse the covers it inspired. While not every song will have in-depth data, most larger-scale artists will have the data in there probe through.
A key driver behind this new level of detail is Spotify’s recent acquisition of WhoSampled.com, the world’s leading database for song samples, covers, and remixes. By bringing the WhoSampled team and its massive community-driven data into the fold, Spotify has integrated years of crowdsourced musical knowledge directly into the app.
This means that for the first time, the ‘DNA’ of a track, including every obscure sample or interpolation, is mapped out and interactive. You can tap into any of those creators to discover other artists they’ve worked with, then explore those collaborators in turn. It’s an interactive way to follow the connections between tracks and see how artists, eras, and genres intersect, giving you a deeper understanding of how what you’re listening to came together.
“SongDNA is designed to make a song’s creative lineage more transparent so fans can easily explore the people and influences behind the music they love,” said Jacqueline Ankner, Spotify’s Head of Songwriter & Publisher Partnerships. “By bringing collaborators, samples, and covers together in one place, we’re making it easier for fans to discover new music and see how songs connect and come to life—while giving songwriters, producers, and rightsholders meaningful recognition for the role they play in creating it.”
For artists and the wider creative community of songwriters, producers, composers, and engineers, SongDNA offers a new way for fans to engage with their work by putting collaborations and influences front and centre.
The connections you see in SongDNA are powered by a combination of information received from artists and their teams, supplemented by the rich data from WhoSampled. As the experience evolves in beta, eligible artist and label teams can review and manage the components of SongDNA in Spotify for Artists, ensuring they have a direct hand in how their musical story is told.
The feature is currently rolling out to iOS and Android users, with a full global release expected throughout April.
With the new features, Spotify provided a bunch of interesting data points:
- The most sampled track in the last decade is: “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” by Whitney Houston, which is sampled in 115 tracks.
- The most covered artist of all time: The Beatles, covered 12,468 times.
- Biggest year-gap case for a 2026 charting track using Pop DNA: The sampled lineage for 2026 release “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter” by Lana Del Rey reaches back to 1964, tracing to “Laura” by Ella Fitzgerald.
- Biggest year-gap case of a 2026 charting track using Hip-Hop DNA: The sampled lineage for 2026 release “ROBBERY (feat. Doechii)” by A$AP Rocky sampled lineage reaches furthest back overall, tracing to Thelonious Monk’s 1955 recording of “Caravan.”
- Some of the Most Popular Samples & Interpolations of 2025:
- #1: “So Be It” by Clipse interpolation of “Maza Akoulou” by Talal Madah
- #2: “NOKIA” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake sample of the Nokia ringtone
- #3: “Ring Ring Ring” by Tyler, The Creator interpolation of “All in the “Way You Get Down” by Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
- #4: “NUEVAYoL” by Bad Bunny sample of “Un Verano en Nueva York” by El Gran Combo De Puerto Rico
- Genre with the highest number of collaborators:
- Dance: 7.34 collaborators per track
- Hip Hop: 6.97 collaborators per track
- Experimental: 6.77 collaborators per track
- Pop: 6.31 collaborators per track
- R&B: 6.13 collaborators per track
- Top Songwriters Across the Global Top 1,000
- Based on the number of unique songwriting credits on this year’s most popular tracks.
- Max Martin
- Bruno Mars
- Amy Allen
- Philip Lawrence
- Benito A. Martinez Ocasio (Bad Bunny)
