'Afrobeats' is ‘kinda’ dying slowly and that's a good thing

European and American music capitalism couldn’t understand the diverse contemporary African genre classifications and they didn’t bother.

Jul 18, 2020

There’s always been a ‘world’ for African music. Throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, Nigerian and African acts were the toast of UK record labels - some even got American record deals as early as the 60s. But around the 90s, the record labels left a Nigerian music industry that was headed for commercial dysfunction in piracy marketed as distribution.

Even though Nigerian/African acts still toured Europe and the Americas, the nexus between Nigeria/most parts of Africa and other markets was significantly lost. By the 2000s, another era of nexus was beginning to establish itself and African acts rode the wave. By the early 2010s, acts like D’Banj and Ice Prince got major recognition from those markets.

Birth of Afrobeats

By 2015, Wizkid, Davido, Diamond Platnumz, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade and more joined their French-speaking African counterparts on their way to a second wave of contemporary recognition from Europe and the Americas. The problem was that all of them had different sounds, woven together by a familiar African percussion and BPM that could make you dance.

Europe and the Americas couldn’t understand the various genre classifications and they didn’t bother. The problem was that European and American music capitalism had pillaged and fed off all the other viable sonic terrains across the world except Africa and its contemporary sound.

They needed to brand the sound and sell it to their people. The dichotomy of description wasn’t going to help, so they categorized every brand of contemporary African pop as ‘Afrobeats.’

For them, it was easier. But to us, there was a problem. Fela, Orlando Julius and many-a-Ghanaian acts through history made a genre called, ‘Afrobeat.’

European and American music capitalism used the letter ‘s’ to be the difference maker. ‘Afrobeat’ would be one genre and ‘Afrobeats’ would be a collection of contemporary African pop music genres and subgenres.

Reference: Afrobeat(s): The Difference a Letter Makes

The problem

It became a disservice to African music because our sounds were not adequately represented. It felt like lumping Trap, Emo, Cloud Rap, Sung-rap, Boom Bap, Crunk, Grime, Drill, Go-Go under one big umbrella of ‘Hip-Hop.’ With Africa, it was worse because every African country has at least 20 branches/genres of pop music.

Africa is more inspired by Europe and America than America and Europe are inspired by Africa. ‘Afrobeats’ was also a culture killer that we lazily started referring to our own brands of pop music as ‘Afrobeats.’

Aside from that, ‘Afrobeats’ also conscripted the many other enjoyable brands of American music to one genre, ‘Afro-pop’ and artists slightly geared efforts towards that.

Akin, a second generation British-Nigerian says, “I was born here [London] and I didn’t go to Nigeria till I was six, but my parents made sure that I could speak Yoruba and that I understood my heritage - I’m grateful for it. I grew up around a lot of Nigerian people, so I knew a lot about my people and their culture.

“That also made me understand a lot of the genres. When ‘Afrobeats’ became a thing, we accepted it because it meant our home was at least getting some recognition. But when it became this ‘umbrella’ term for African contemporary pop, it sort of became annoying. In my head, I got it but I also wanted the right genres to be mentioned.”

The major problem with the ‘Afrobeats’ generalization is that it often collides with Fela’s more popular music that America and Europe loves. That then creates a subconscious expectation of African artists who make more diverse sounds than Afrobeat.

The slow, but sure death of ‘Afrobeats’

Over the past one year, Africa has started to take its power back. Make no mistake, it is still subtle and furtive, but the change has begun. First off, Africa is in the process of establishing the Afro-pop genre as distinct from everything else. Francophone acts are establishing Soukous, Kwassa Kwassa, Cavacha and the likes, in part aided by first-generation African immigrants in France.

Alizia, a mother of one who was born in Congo but moved to France at age five says, “I have seen my friends try to correct some white people who love African music. I have also seen some white people get offended by the correction and I get it. But we need to make everybody realize that Africa is wider than just ‘Afrobeats’ that we didn’t create.

“Largely, people still call it Afrobeats. But there is a subtle change in the tide of things. Some radio stations and music departments will even tell their employees to research certain sounds because they want to get things right. Maybe outrage isn’t bad after all [laughs].This also makes more first-generation Africans get more involved in their heritage.

“I know the amount of time I’ve researched African music since 2018, so I can get genres right. It’s important for us as Africans. We have to determine what we get called.”

Genres like Kizomba, Gqom and Amapiano are identified for their names, not simply Afrobeats. Even EDM is branching out into ADM - African dance music. Whenever music capitalists mention ‘Afrobeats’ as a genre, they are corrected by first-generation Africans in America and other parts of Europe to engage more discernment.

Again, it is still early days but it’s slowly happening. Echoing the sentiments of Alizia and Akin, Nana says that, “It will take a long time before African music is truly properly represented, but some roots are being planted. To be honest, it might never happen and smaller umbrella terms might be found for other genres that sound alike with an ‘Afro’ prefix, but at least ‘Afrobeats’ will stop being a thing. It’s too lazy!

“I think we are seeing the early days of slow death for ‘Afrobeats’ and that’s a thoroughly good thing - excuse the use of thorough [laughs].”

Nana inspired this piece. Shout-out to her for helping Listen Africa! get perspectives from Akin and Alizia as well.

#ListenAfricaExtra Here are additional bits of content from the past week;

You can read Motolani Alake’s interview with Oye Akideinde, CEO of Music Time HERE.
You can also read Motolani Alake’s chat with SuperboyCheque HERE.
Fu’ad Lawal, Editor-In-Chief at Zikoko starts a newsletter, Vistanium.
Veteran Culture Journalist, Ayomide Tayo launched the first installment of his newsletter, Naija Times.
Veteran Journalist and Tech professional, Chiagoziem Onyekwena also manages GetDotAfrica, a weekly newsletter on happenings in African Tech.
Davido Adeleke, Head of Communication at Eko Atlantic started Communique, a newsletter.

Here are the song on the Listen Africa! Playlist on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Audiomack, Deezer and Boomplay;

The MMNT - Loverman
Sarah Kalume - Je Te Garde
Thabsie ft Mthunzi - Sphesihle
Azana - Okhokho
Sun El-Musician ft Ami Faku - Into Ingawe
Tellaman & Alpha P - Cross my heart remix
Adekunle Gold - AG Baby
Gospelondebeatz ft Okiemute & Moonchild Sanelly - Money
Ajebo Hustlers - Barawo
Kabza de small ft Howard, Daliwonga & Nia Pearl - Wena
Zoey T - Nudes
Greek - Kill Them All
Alim Kamara - Letter To Sierra Leone
Rik Artsenz - Yeah
Wills - Pamukutu
Gemma Fassie - All I Need
Elmina - No Drama
Maze x Mxtreme featuring Solidkeyz - Down South
Tennin - We Stand Alone
Niyyi - Terranova

You can get the playlist on all five streaming platforms HERE.

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