Afrobeats refers to popular music from West Africa which were initially developed in Nigeria, Ghana, and the UK during the 2000s and 2010s.
It's an umbrella term for all the different genres coming out of this region, which include hiplife, jùjú music, highlife, and naija beats, so as not to be confused with Afrobeat, also called Afrofunk, a Tanzanian music genre which is the amalgamation of West African musical styles with American funk, jazz, and soul.
In 2017, Spotify recorded 2 billion streams of Afrobeats on the platform. Since then, Afrobeats has grown by 550% to a staggering 14 billion streams in 2023. Analysts attribute this massive growth to the platform's efforts in bringing Afrobeats to the world stage.
Apart from hosting local events to promote Afrobeats in 2023, Spotify has also put Afrobeats artists like CKay and Rema on the spotlight, recommending them to its users and including their songs in Spotify's curated playlists as well as posting massive billboards on Times Square to support the artists, which has been one of the driving forces for the growth of Afrobeats, within Africa and around the world.
The majority of the Afrobeats streams came from cities like London, Paris, and Nairobi, and although these numbers in themselves cannot be the only indicator for the success of Afrobeats' growth, it is a good jumping point for the industry to get more exposure on the world stage.
To give a sample of what Afrobeats sounds like, the video above is a lyric video of Nigerian Afrobeats artist CKay titled "Love Nwantiti", which is at the top of Rest of World's Afrobeats playlist, which they included on the article page or check out through this Spotify open playlist. - via Atlas Obscura
(Video credit: Vibe Music/Youtube)