Afrobeats: How the world danced to a Nigerian tune
About
seven days ago, veteran Nigerian Afrobeat megastar Wizkid sold out the Accord
Arena, in Paris, France, spectacularly descending from the sky to give a
charged, knockout performance to over 20,000 enthralled fans.
The
'Soco' hitmaker had, just nine months earlier, sold out the fabled O2 Arena in
London; selling out the entire 20-000 man arena in under 12 minutes (we see you
Beyonce) and bringing out everyone from Chris Brown, to Skepta to Ella Mai.
In
March 2022, Wizkid's Afrobeat contemporary and on-and-off rival Davido also
shut down the same London arena, packing tens of thousands of breathless fans,
as they watched him dramatically cascade from the rafters, with Hollywood
heartthrob Idris Elba introducing him and Jamaican ragga ace Popcaan rocking
the stadium away.
As
the two battled on who was the GOAT, Burna Boy boisterously roared into the
chat, reminding them that he had, in August 2021, sold 80,000 tickets at the O2
Arena himself and grossed an obscenely-gigantic amount of cash - $5.6 million (approx.
Ksh.679 million).
And
in April 2022, Burna Boy became the first Nigerian singer to sell out the olympian
Madison Square Gardens, majestically ripping through a seismic repertoire of
some of his biggest hits and appearing on pretty much all late-night shows in
the US.
Afrobeat
newcomers Tems, Rema, Omah Lay, Ruger and Adekunle Gold have also found their
own version of unimaginable global success, from appearing on Beyonce's album,
to featuring Selena Gomez on a remix and performing at Coachella.
Across
Africa (and the World at large), Nigerian singers have become so big, so
ubiquitous, DJs have been reduced to playing nothing else but a winding riff of
Afrobeat megahits, from dusk to dawn.
Chris
Brown has looked to Nigeria for inspiration, Justin Bieber has inserted himself
into the Afrobeat culture for points, Ed Sheeran has fallen under the
enchanting Yoruba spell and Beyonce has even dropped an album packed with the
Lagos wizardry.
As
of 2022, Nigerian music has become a must-have world staple with many fumbling
in the dark unable to explain the source of this irresistible Afrobeat charm.
In
an article for the Quartz Magazine, senior reporter Sarah Todd opened:
"Artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and Jon Batiste are up for
trophies at the 2022 Grammy Awards on Sunday. But one winner is
already clear: the genre of Afrobeats."
In
an interview posted on the official Grammy Awards website, Angelique
Kidjo, a frequent Burna Boy collaborator, explained:
"I
think the Academy (Grammys) has, for the first time, a grip on the complexity
of the music that’s out there. Today, we have a vehicle, and it’s Afrobeats.
Because if you take any music from any part of Africa and put it in Afrobeats,
it gives you a different flavor of Afrobeats," she said.
"The
music that we do can make people say, “Oh, this language is different, or this
aesthetic.” But because you have the pulse of Afrobeats in it, you can consume
and discover music from North to South, East to West, and Central Africa in a
way that we haven’t [before]. The Afrobeats is underlining all those
traditional rhythms."
Nigeria,
the bastion of Afrobeats, produces most of the stars who have penetrated the
West in recent years.
Industry
insiders point to the country’s immense population of more than 206 million,
comparative wealth, and more-developed music-business ecosystem as contributing
factors to its indomitable dominance.
“They’re
all across the planet, as well,” said Juls, a successful Ghanaian producer and
DJ. “Everywhere you go, Nigerians are there, and Nigerians are very loud and
proud about where they come from. They support their own.”
Studies
have shown that large swaths of West African immigrants and their
first-generation American offspring are concentrated in places like New York,
the D.C. area, Houston, and Atlanta.
"In
these places, it’s not unusual to find Afrobeats powering gatherings of
Africans and Caribbeans, whose culture and music share roots. A lot of Africans
in those cities have been religiously playing Afrobeats,” Juls says. “It’s just
gotten around like, ‘Wow, I went to this club, and this is what they were
playing, and it was going off!’”
The
genre's success can also be attributed to excellent marketing, impeccable PR
teams, partnerships with global music outlets, the artists' own grit and
ambition and, generally, the fluidity of the music across all African
communities.
Ghanaian
singer Amaarae, in an interview with Rolling Stones, also pointed out that the
world was looking to Africa (read, Nigeria) for musical direction.
“It’s
pretty clear Africa is the next frontier,” she said. “Audiomack has an office
now in Nigeria. Spotify made moves towards Nigeria. Universal Music Group now
has a Nigerian branch.”
According
to Ken Ouma, one of the pioneering music producers in Kenya, it all boils down
to musical identity, structures and sound.
"In
Kenya, the dynamics are totally different. Here, the music business is yet to
stabilize in the manner that it has in, say, Nigeria. There are still a lot of
loopholes in the industry, quack producers, a very unstructured distribution
network and a somewhat demoralised community of artists,” Ken Ouma, also known
as Mr. K. O, a music producer, talent scout and music executive at Ouma
Productions, says.
"Also,
Unlike Nigerians, Kenyans lack a universal sound. We tend to sound like
everyone else. In South Africa, they have Amapiano, in Tanzania, they have
their Bongo sound, Ugandans have that distinctive ragamuffin sound, Nigerians
have Afrobeats, the Congolese have Lingala and Rhumba, what does Kenya have?
Nothing. We cannot be copying styles from across the world and still hope to
leave a mark in the global music map."
In
an interview with the BBC, music publicist Bilha Nguraiya reserved some harsh
words for many Kenyan musicians who, according to her, "didn't want to
compete and measure up" with the continental stars.
"Music
was a way for some of them to get away from poverty. And now they are too
scared to get out of their comfort zone because it might upset the equation -
they don't know better and are afraid to take risks," she told the BBC.
And
while music genres like Amapiano and Afrobeats continue to rapture the world
and reach hitherto unchartered lands, Kenyan musicians can only sit back,
dazed, unsure of where the rain started to beat us.
“Afrobeats
is going to be on par with hip-hop, because what makes hip-hop great is not
that it is recognized as a genre, it is also recognized as a culture,” Fireboy
DML said to Rolling Stone, “Afrobeats is a culture too.”
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