By: The Jídé Taiwo
For full disclosure, I am a reluctant user of the term “Afrobeats”. My reticence is not born out of any hateration, but as our music began to attract major international attention about ten years ago, I was convinced that the name would be used to box all of Nigeria’s music into a compact, yet loose potpourri of different things.
I feared that Afrobeats would come to suffer the same fate that has befallen the Hollywood stereotypical African accent; they just make the characters open their mouths wide with exaggerated expressions to play African. If Wizkid and Davido were making popular music, why should they not be pop the same way Chris Brown was?
Ten years later, I do not think that fear was completely justified: using Afrobeats has helped in identifying our sound and its players. It has served as the vehicle by which our music has travelled with no visa, and the rapid growth experienced since that time may have needed a longer route if we didn’t have a name, a descriptor, for the world to instantly recognise us by.
Yet, a niggling worry remains: what exactly does “Afrobeats” mean? What makes an Afrobeats song Afrobeats? What composition makes it that, as opposed to the elements that define Kwaito or K-Pop or Rock & Roll? I find myself asking again in light of the Afrobeats to the World conversation that has emerged in recent days. Has Afrobeats actually reached the world, or is it a matter of some Afrobeats artistes reaching the world? And what exactly does it mean, this Afrobeats to the World mantra?
For all intents and purposes, it speaks to the emergence of Afrobeats in the global mainstream. It is the most captivating music genre in the world, driven by the irrepressible Nigerian spirit and our ability to bang out a tune from almost anything. Who would have ever thought that a line said by a Yoruba actor — “Gbogbo wa la ma je breakfast” by Ogogo — would inspire a Grammy-nominated song —Burna Boy’s “Last Last” — twenty years later?
In that time, we’ve seen our music receive all the accolades the early practitioners dreamt of back in the day. We’ve seen Afrobeats bring in all the major entertainment media companies to Lagos. Barack Obama has made it a point of duty to include one or two Afrobeats songs in his annual playlist. F(St)ans who have never seen the insides of the Muson Centre can reel off how many times their faves have “sold out the O2″. The Afrobeats years have been great, no doubt.
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But its continued greatness appears to be at an enormous cost: it is leaving fans at home behind. Each time Burna Boy sells out arenas abroad, the likelihood of a fan in Rumuokoro seeing him in concert becomes slimmer. It is now a commonly held belief that as Afrobeats continue to gain international recognition and success, its focus on foreign markets may inadvertently (or wilfully) neglect local fans who have supported its journey from the beginning. And sometimes, less-than-ideal situations like news of Wizkid cancelling some of his international shows raise the question: is Afrobeats in decline? Is it in danger?
The answer to both questions is no, and not really. However, Afrobeats is in need of a soul. To find it, it must operate in a duality that takes its local roots as seriously as it does its international connect, if not more so. The international exposure has been the key factor in taking the genre from home-based to global status, and it’s nothing to thumb our noses at.
Being acknowledged by established international platforms such as global charts, award shows, or influential media can enhance a genre’s credibility and open doors to new audiences and industry networks. This recognition often correlates with higher commercial success and sustainability for artists within the genre. International validation encourages cross-cultural collaborations and genre blending, which can refresh and evolve the genre’s sound, making it more appealing to diverse audiences.
On the flip side, the essence of Afrobeats is that it’s a uniquely Nigerian experience that cannot be replicated in absentia. International validation is not a prerequisite for Afrobeats’ artistic or cultural sophistication. Many genres thrive and evolve within their local contexts. The challenge Afrobeats faces now is that its success has been external-facing, not internal.
The wins that matter (to artistes, if no one else) are those that happen outside of Nigeria, physically and mentally. The trend has to reverse itself. The world must come to us to experience us. To do that, the entire ecosystem has a role to play. Arenas, hotels, major media, indigenous streaming and distribution services… the whole nine yards. It is boring and unsexy work, but it has to be done. Not doing it is what can set Afrobeats as we’ve come to know it, on the path of eventual decline.
The continued rise of Afrobeats is a balancing act that requires its practitioners to remain true to their cultural roots while embracing global innovation and cross-cultural collaboration. Afrobeats can proudly stay here while simultaneously going to the world to share our magic and stories. It is why this past December, nearly all of the frontrunners were in Lagos over the Christmas period.
They can bluster all they want, but they know the sauce is here. The lamba is here. Most of all, the soul is here. The operative word in the phrase “Afrobeats to the World” is the preposition “to”. It means that Afrobeats is coming from somewhere. That somewhere must be protected so that the global conquest can continue. After all, ilé la tí ń kó ẹ̀ṣọ́ r’òde.
The Jídé Taiwo is a media executive and culture consultant. He’s the author of History Made and E File Fun Burna.
