Tems (Temilade Openiyi) winning the Best International Act at the 2022 BET Awards, thereby making history as the first Nigerian and African female musician to achieve this feat, places Afrobeats at the front and centre of global attention.

By Bemigho Awala

Wait for you, an Afrobeats classic has made its debut at Number 1 on the most prestigious chart in American music, Billboard Hot 100. The hot jam is a collaborative joint that features Future, rapper Drake and the new kid on the block, Tems, the Nigerian songster that blessed the world with a previous hit single, Essence, which had Wizkid.

This makes the 26-year-old the first Nigerian to attain this huge feat in the 63-year history of the Billboard Hot 100. On April 28, 2022, Grammy Award-winning Burna Boy became the first Nigerian musician to headline a sold-out show at the world’s most famous arena, the Madison Square Garden, in a concert christened One Night in Space.

In 2017, Wizkid became the first African artiste to headline a sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall, United Kingdom. These examples serve as loud banners that herald the proud elevation of Nigerian music and the Afrobeats genre, by extension, on the world’s music scape.

In the last few years, we are living witnesses to Davido’s Fall being played on United States radio to Burna Boy’s YE and On the Low Rema’s Soundgasm breaking into the international mainstream Olamide’s Rock entering the top 10 of the global Triller Chart to the smash hit Essence and now CKay’s Love Nwantinti (ah-ah) [Remix] topping several national charts across the world and emerging as one of Shazam’s most-searched songs.

Amazing stuff, you might say, but the phenomenal rise of Afrobeats has been steady and consistent.

It is important to draw a distinction between Afrobeats and afrobeat, a musical style popularised and exemplified by the works of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti developed in the late 60s and early ’70s.

In a generic sense, Afrobeats represent a new sound, a 21st-century melting pot of Western rap influences, bashment, dancehall, R&B, EDM, and contemporary Ghanaian and Nigerian pop music. It goes without saying that the sound is very eclectic, upbeat, fun, and energetic melodies designed to make you move while Afrobeats, on the other hand, is big band, afro-funk, jazz-influenced, and often highly politically charged in lyrics and tonality.

The birth of music stations, such as Multichoice’s Channel O and MTV Base Africa, provided a rich window into Nigerian music and exposure for foreigners to experience the highly experimental sound in the early 2000s. These platforms allowed artistes like MI, Naeto C, P-Square, and Sarkodie to enjoy mass appeal outside of their local bases in Ghana and Nigeria.

With the rise in the profiles of many of these musicians, they began to headline shows abroad with their music gradually seeping through their nightclubs and drawing the attention of other African-based acts in the US and UK.

As London prepared to usher in the 2012 Olympics, D’Banj’s Oliver Twist was blared out to thousands of revelers as fireworks lit up the sky to welcome the New Year. He would later feature influential American rapper, Snoop Dogg on his Mr. Endowed track and get signed to Kanye West’s Good Music label while Akon snapped up three Nigerian Afrobeats artistes – WizKid, 2Face Idibia, and P-Square.

Akon’s Konvict Muzik label helped the twin brothers’ band, PSquare release their fifth album, Invasion, featuring guest appearances from Akon, Rick Ross, and Tiwa Savage. US artists, like French Montana, Kanye West, Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams, and Rick Ross, have experimented with the genre or collaborated with Afrobeats artists.

In the years that followed, the continuous rise of Afrobeats internationally has been propped up by more investment and positioning by way of collaborations with other heavyweight foreign acts. This has given the indigenous sound the necessary fillip to become a truly global sound. Also, the grit, determination, and consistency shown by Afrobeats artists have in turn been rewarded with awards, recognitions, mentions in international publications, deals, and sales. These have further fueled the rise and diversity of the African sound.

Who can forget in a hurry Wizkid’s Ojuelegba, which became a global anthem and received an even bigger boost when Drake and Skepta jumped on the hit songs remix? Drake’s One Dance with Wizkid and Kyla was at a point in 2016 Spotify’s most-streamed song ever, with over one billion streams and Number 1 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart for 15 weeks – the longest-running Number 1 single of the millennium.

Music experts have raised the point that Afrobeats’ secret sauce is not only its adaptability but its malleability in maintaining its roots as a West African sound. This enabled it to travel across borders, capturing the hearts, minds, and dances of millions of music lovers across the globe.

The Queen of pop music Beyonce’s Black is King album is a fine reflection of the power of the Afrobeats sound, which has also been validated by Burna Boy’s Grammy award-winning Twice as Tall album that had P Diddy as an executive producer. With Afrobeats gradually becoming a major staple at many international radio stations across the US, Europe, and Asia, the future of sound clarity is very bright.

To signpost Afrobeat relevance in the grand scheme of all genres of music, Afro Nation has launched the first-ever Official Afrobeats Chart, a weekly Top 40 music chart. Music Streamers, such as Spotify, AudioMack, and Boomplay are making huge investments in the local music scenes even as foreign music labels now have a stronger local presence in-country.

The expectation for many music lovers is that Afrobeats will be what hip-hop was in the ’80s and ’90s. According to an Afrobeats artiste, Fireboy DML, “Afrobeats is going to be on par with hip-hop because what makes hip-hop great is not that it is recognised as a genre, it is also recognised as a culture.”

Let’s raise a toast to local content gone global. Long live Afrobeats.

Bemigho Awala is a highly dynamic, independent, and experienced professional in audio-visual, radio advertising, press, and public relations. He is based in Lagos.  

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.