Over the past few years, Afrobeats has recorded tremendous international success – thanks to Nigeria’s talented artists who are breaking barriers and making their mark on the international music scene. The genre has grown to the extent that it now competes with foreign songs in clubs in the diaspora.
Nigeria is the home of Afrobeats – the modern variant of Afrobeat popularised by Fela Anikulapo Kuti in the 1970s – producing most of the artists who have penetrated the West in recent years. A decade ago, Nigerian artists were struggling for international recognition and Afrobeats was not one of the hottest styles around. “I’m old enough to remember when our music industry was flooded by American and Jamaican music, and Nigerians preferred to listen to Eve, Eminem, Boys 2 Men, Snoop Dog and Blues,” ace music journalist, Joey Akan says.
“When Nigerians will proudly beat their chest and call our local music horse shit. People even earned social cool points for announcing that they don’t listen to Nigerian music. I’m also old enough to remember when our music and industry hit a ceiling and couldn’t find a route to new markets beyond Africa.”
Today, things are much different. Afrobeats, dominated by Nigerian trailblazing acts like Davido, Burna Boy, Wizkid, Rema and Tiwa Savage, is in its heyday. Afrobeats is having a big transnational and transatlantic moment. Its biggest stars are filling stadiums, forging new collaborations across Africa and the rest of the world while infiltrating airwaves and dominating music charts across the globe. Its global popularity has been marked by Grammy wins, viral dance videos on social media platforms such as TikTok and sold-out arena tours.
How did this crossover success and recognition on the global level happen? Akan explains, “What did we do? We didn’t blame the Americans and Jamaicans for eating in our market. We simply looked inward and stepped up our music for three decades, until it became worthy of global cross-cultural consumption.
“What did we do? We reached out across the world, begged and paid everyone who made themselves available to us. From Rick Ross to Snoop Dog and T.I., we got scammed in the U.S. repeatedly, all for a guest verse. We flew to foreign countries, walked into major label offices and sold our market to uninterested execs for decades, until they saw the value, and rushed down here. Took three decades and many generations of artists for that to happen.”
There has been a growing list of Nigerian nominees for the prestigious Grammy Awards since 2020. And for many music enthusiasts, the nominations are a testament to the heartwarming global recognition that is being accorded to Afrobeats.
Burna Boy’s 2019 album, “African Giant” paved the way for Afrobeats at the 62nd Grammy Awards in 2020 through a nomination for “Best World Music Album”. Afrobeats eventually had its big moment in 2021 when his fifth studio album, “Twice as Tall” clinched the Grammy’s “Best Global Music Album” award. The nomination of Wizkid’s 2021 “Made in Lagos” (deluxe edition) album for the same category in 2022 made it the third time in succession that Afrobeats was recognised at the Grammys. His “Essence” with Tems also received a nomination at the 64th Grammy Awards for “Best Global Music Performance”.
This year, Burna Boy, for the third time, snagged a nomination in the “Best Global Music Album” category with “Love, Damini” (2022). He was also nominated in the “Best Global Music Performance” category for his “Last Last” single. Tems was nominated in the “Best Rap Song” and “Best Melodic Rap Performance” category as a featured artist on American rapper Future’s single “Wait For U”. The single won the latter category.
Among Afrobeats’ growing audience is the United States – thanks to the high-profile collaborations with U.S. artists. There’s plenty of evidence that Afrobeats is connecting in the U.S. In October 2021, Burna Boy became the first African solo artist to headline the Hollywood Bowl and in 2022, he sold out New York’s Madison Square Garden, the first headlining performance for a Nigerian musician.
Most recently, at February’s NBA All-Star Game in Utah, Grammy winner Tems, Rema and Burna Boy performed a medley of their hits, and the ecstatic crowd screamed the lyrics of their songs back at them. Burna Boy, last Saturday, sold out the 41,000-capacity Citi Field stadium in New York, becoming the first African to sell out the U.S. stadium while Afrobeats superstar Davido held a “Timeless” (the title of his latest album) tour in the US recently.
The collaborations by Afrobeats artists with the biggest music stars in the U.S. have made for further sustained global exposure. Beyoncé enlisted numerous Afrobeats stars, including Wizkid and Burna Boy for her Grammy-nominated soundtrack album “The Lion King: The Gift” (2019). Her “Brown Skin Girl” featuring Wizkid won the “Best Music Video” award at the 2021 Grammys.
In July 2021, Wizkid’s and Tems-assisted “Essence” made history as the first Nigerian song to chart on the U.S. Billboard 100, bolstered by a remix with Justin Bieber. It was also the year’s most shazamed song in the U.S. – Shazam is an app that identifies songs. Globally, “Finesse” (2022) by Pheelz and Buju, “Love Nwantiti” (2019) by Ckay and Kizz Daniel’s hit with Tekno “Buga” (2022) were named the most shazamed songs in the world in 2022, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
“Calm Down’s” hit remix collaboration between Selena Gomez and Rema has topped multiple Billboard charts like U.S. Afrobeats Songs, Pop Airplay, Rhythmic Airplay and Global Excl. U.S., while peaking at No. 3 on the Hot 100 — becoming the highest-charting hit from an Afrobeats lead artist in the chart’s 65-year history. To date, “One Dance”, an Afrobeats song by Drake with a cameo from Wizkid is the seventh most streamed song of all time – it has surpassed two billion streams on Spotify.
The global relevance of Afrobeats is further signposted by the launching of America’s first-ever Afrobeats charts to rank the top 50 Afrobeats songs in the U.S. based on streaming, airplay and physical sales by Billboard in partnership with a music festival company Afro Nation last year. This is a reflection that Afrobeats has soared in popularity and is gradually becoming the fastest-growing genre in American pop culture. Just like Nigerian singer-songwriter Ckay said, “Afrobeats is the new pop.”
“Everything Nigerian music has right now took generations of insane work. We earned every win with our blood. Every inch we took, we paid for it in coin, tears and broken dreams,” music journalist Akan noted. Hence, Afrobeats, with its heavy percussion, repeating vocals, energetic melodies and a blend of English language and pidgin English, will continue to reverberate around the world.
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