15 years into his career, Wizkid no longer needs a new hit to prove that he belongs on a major stage. On Sunday, the Nigerian superstar closed the 2026 Afro Plus Fest in Maryland, United States, with a set that stretched across different eras of his career, bringing together songs from the young star who emerged in the early 2010s and the global Afrobeats figure he has since become.

The three-day festival, held from September 4 to 6 at the Northwest Stadium Complex in Landover, Maryland, placed Wizkid at the centre of a celebration of African, Caribbean and American music. He followed Davido and Jamaican dancehall star Alkaline, who headlined the festival’s first two nights.

For Wizkid, however, the performance was also a career marker. His breakthrough came around 2010 and 2011, when “Holla at Your Boy” and his debut album, Superstar, established him as one of the defining young voices of Nigeria’s new generation of pop stars.

15 years later, songs from that era still sit alongside some of the biggest records of his career.

His Afro Plus Fest set moved through tracks including “Caro”, “Ojuelegba”, “Daddy Yo”, “Essence” and “Bad to Me”, giving fans a condensed tour of a career that has moved from Lagos to some of the biggest stages in the world. That journey has also coincided with a much bigger change in African music.

When Wizkid emerged, Afrobeats was already developing a strong audience outside Nigeria, but African pop had yet to become a permanent fixture in the global mainstream. His collaborations, particularly Drake’s “One Dance” and the Tems-assisted “Essence”, helped push that crossover further.

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Wizkid eventually became the first Nigerian artist to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 through his contribution to “One Dance”. He later won a Grammy for his contribution to Beyoncé’s “Brown Skin Girl”, adding another milestone to a career that has increasingly blurred the line between Nigerian pop and global music.

The setting of his latest performance was almost as significant as the performance itself. Afro Plus Fest has quickly grown from a one-day event into a three-day celebration of Afro Caribbean and hip hop culture. Its 2025 debut reportedly attracted about 20,000 people and generated an estimated US$10 million in local economic impact. Organisers expanded the festival this year, with a projected 120,000 attendees across the three days.

The 2026 line-up reflected the increasingly international nature of African music. Alongside Wizkid, Davido and Alkaline were artists including Tems, Ayra Starr, Tiwa Savage, Olamide, Adekunle Gold, Lil Baby and Latto.

For Nigerian artistes, stages like this have become an important part of the Afrobeats export story. The audience is no longer made up only of Nigerians and other Africans living abroad. African music now sits comfortably within broader global festivals and music markets.

Wizkid’s closing performance captured that transition neatly. He was not simply representing Nigeria at an American festival. He was one of the festival’s main attractions.

Wizkid’s career has gone through several phases, from the youthful energy of Superstar to the more internationally focused sound of Made in Lagos, More Love, Less Ego and Morayo.

Yet his latest performance showed that the older records have not disappeared as his sound has evolved. Fans sang along to songs spanning his career, turning the final night into something close to a live retrospective.

That may be the significance of Wizkid’s 15th year in music. He is no longer simply part of the generation that helped popularise Afrobeats outside Africa. He is now part of the history of how that happened. And at Afro Plus Fest, that history was still loud enough to close the weekend.

Meiza Nigeria