Pop culture: Afrobeats finally gets its groove on

Not long ago, this kind of global success for an Afrobeats song would have raised eyebrows. But the truth is: The Afrobeats genre broadly — and specifically the Nigerian music industry — has in recent years produced hit after hit.

Be they longing melodies such as “Essence”, Burna Boy’s heady beats, Yemi Alade’s Afropolitan tones, Wizkid’s party-starter “Joro” or Davido’s jovial “Fall,” these tracks have woken a sleeping giant. A Nigerian treasure trove of musical talent and creativity is pumping across dance floors from Lagos to Los Angeles. The rise to global prominence of Afrobeats seems to have coincided with the pandemic. Indeed, hit after hit and collaborations with big-name international acts, from Justin Bieber to Beyonce to Ed Sheeran, are among recent successes.

But the reality is different, the Lagos-based veteran producer and musician Ade Bantu told DW.”Nigeria has always been a powerhouse when it comes to music,” Bantu said, rattling off a list of household names including King Sunny Ade and Fela Kuti.

To explain the current wave of international prominence that Nigerian artists are enjoying, Bantu pointed to the 2012 success of the Nigerian artist D’Banj. His barrier-breaking, dancefloor-shaking single “Oliver Twist” in the UK “opened the floodgates.””Everybody just caught the Nigerian bug. And then you have this massive Nigerian diaspora in the UK, the United States and other hubs around the world,” Bantu said.

Analysts have sought to correlate the increased interest in Afrobeats with growing, upwardly mobile West African diaspora populations in major music markets. But even the term Afrobeats is blurry. Afrobeats with an ‘s’ differs from the horn-filled Afrobeat music associated with Fela Kuti. The term was only coined in the mid-2000s in London by DJs in the diaspora to market popular music coming out of Nigeria. Before that, the creations of West African artists were often lumped together with other musicians under the term World Music, the arts and culture journalist Bolaji Alonge told DW.”Afrobeats with an ‘S’ is a combination of different genres over the decades — from highlife to reggae. Today you have Afrofunk, Afrohouse, Afropolitan music, and all fall under the label Afrobeats,” Alonge said.

Afrobeats tracks may lack the political vigor and brass instruments of previous Nigerian offerings, but no one disputes that successful Afrobeats songs are groovy and catchy. Strong percussion rhythms keep the dance-floor bouncing. Audiences don’t mind lyrics spoken in local Nigerian pidgin or regional dialects — even in foreign markets. Still, would a Wizkid or a Davido have made the same splash 10 years ago? Bantu said no. “You had predominantly white men dictating taste, especially in one of the biggest markets in the world, the US. Now, all of a sudden, it’s the kids, it’s the audience that determines what is hip and what isn’t,” said Bantu. The advent of social media and streaming was a game changer for Nigerian artists.