Music genre · Nigeria · Ghana
Afrobeats
Afrobeats is the umbrella name for the popular music that came out of Nigeria and Ghana from the 2000s — a mix of West African rhythms and melodies with hip-hop, dancehall, R&B and electronic production. The term was popularised in 2011 by the UK-based Ghanaian DJ Abrantee, and the sound has since topped charts worldwide through artists such as Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, Tems and Rema.
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A name for a scene
In the 2000s, Nigerian and Ghanaian pop was changing fast. Producers in Lagos and Accra mixed local rhythms — highlife, fuji, juju — with hip-hop beats, dancehall and R&B. Artists such as 2Face Idibia, P-Square and D'banj filled clubs across West Africa and the diaspora.
The scene got its name in London. In April 2011 the Ghanaian-British DJ Abrantee launched an "Afrobeats" radio show to describe the new West African music he was playing. The name stuck, even though the music is many styles rather than one.
Breakthrough moments
- 2012: D'banj's "Oliver Twist" became a UK club and chart hit.
- 2016: Wizkid featured on Drake's "One Dance", which reached number one in the United States and around the world.
- 2021: Burna Boy won the Grammy for Best Global Music Album with Twice as Tall; Wizkid and Tems's "Essence" became a global summer hit.
- 2022 onwards: Rema's "Calm Down" became one of the most streamed songs ever by an African artist, and Burna Boy headlined stadiums in London and New York in 2023.
- 2024: the Grammys introduced a Best African Music Performance category.
What it sounds like
Most Afrobeats songs are mid-tempo and made for dancing: syncopated drums and percussion, melodic basslines, warm synths and guitars, and vocals that slide between English, Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba, Igbo, Twi and other languages. Subgenres and neighbours multiply quickly — Afro-fusion, Afro-swing in the UK, and in recent years a strong influence from South Africa's amapiano.
Afrobeats is not Afrobeat
The confusion is constant, so it is worth stating plainly. Afrobeat, without the s, is the 1970s band music of Fela Kuti: long, horn-driven and political. Afrobeats is a 21st-century pop umbrella. Afrobeats artists often honour Fela — Burna Boy especially — but the two are different genres from different eras.
Related
Afrobeats owes a debt to highlife, West Africa's first great pop music, and shares dance floors worldwide with Congolese rumba and its descendants.