This piece was created in partnership with Afro Nation. Billboard and Afro Nation recently launched the first-ever official Billboard Afrobeats U.S. Songs Chart, tracking the most popular rising new music in the rapidly growing genre. The 50-position Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart, which will go live on Billboard.com on March 29, ranks the most popular Afrobeat songs in the country based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading audio and video music services, plus download sales from top music retailers.
This piece was created in partnership with Afro Nation. Billboard and Afro Nation recently launched the first-ever official Billboard Afrobeats U.S. Songs Chart, tracking the most popular rising new music in the rapidly growing genre. The 50-position Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart, which will go live on Billboard.com on March 29, ranks the most popular Afrobeat songs in the country based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading audio and video music services, plus download sales from top music retailers.
In this present age, Afrobeats is an electronic extension following this same route, taking in Nigerian Afrobeat and Ghanaian highlife with reggae and dancehall sensibilities, which has crossed over to the mainstream and is slowly infiltrating U.S. air waves. Its global popularity is marked by Grammy wins, viral dance challenges and sold-out arena tours.
The geographical routes of pain are now transformed into a positive and defining soundtrack for migrant communities in the African diaspora to have a clearer connection to their roots via music as a safe space. However, as important as it is to look ahead, it’s just as important to reflect back on the rise of African music and its crossover into wider pop culture through a number of landmark moments across the Black Atlantic.
Born Fela Anikulapo Kuti on October 15, 1938, the pioneer of Afrobeat with a middle name meaning, “One who carries death in his pouch,” carries a fearlessness which follows his discography through honest social commentary on the dying embers of colonialism and its effect on the biggest population in Africa. Afrobeat is a genre with the familiar universal appeal of jazz, soul and Ghanaian highlife, alongside the polyrhythmic drumming foundations of the Yoruba, Ewe, and Ga tribes.
This balance of West African traditions and movements across the West parallels with the late Nigerian musician’s own personal story – leaving his motherland for England in 1958, enrolling at the Trinity College of Music in London, and forming his Koola Lobitos group with a West African and Caribbean lineup, blending jazz and highlife a few years later. The Koola Lobitos would enjoy initial success upon his return back to Nigeria, but their popularity would soon fade with his influential mother Funmilayo asking him to “start playing music your people understand, not jazz.” During this soul-searching period, Kuti traveled to Ghana in 1967 and started to build inspiration for a new musical direction he would christen Afrobeat.
In this present age, Afrobeats is an electronic extension following this same route, taking in Nigerian Afrobeat and Ghanaian highlife with reggae and dancehall sensibilities, which has crossed over to the mainstream and is slowly infiltrating U.S. air waves. Its global popularity is marked by Grammy wins, viral dance challenges and sold-out arena tours.
The geographical routes of pain are now transformed into a positive and defining soundtrack for migrant communities in the African diaspora to have a clearer connection to their roots via music as a safe space. However, as important as it is to look ahead, it’s just as important to reflect back on the rise of African music and its crossover into wider pop culture through a number of landmark moments across the Black Atlantic.
Born Fela Anikulapo Kuti on October 15, 1938, the pioneer of Afrobeat with a middle name meaning, “One who carries death in his pouch,” carries a fearlessness which follows his discography through honest social commentary on the dying embers of colonialism and its effect on the biggest population in Africa. Afrobeat is a genre with the familiar universal appeal of jazz, soul and Ghanaian highlife, alongside the polyrhythmic drumming foundations of the Yoruba, Ewe, and Ga tribes.
This balance of West African traditions and movements across the West parallels with the late Nigerian musician’s own personal story – leaving his motherland for England in 1958, enrolling at the Trinity College of Music in London, and forming his Koola Lobitos group with a West African and Caribbean lineup, blending jazz and highlife a few years later. The Koola Lobitos would enjoy initial success upon his return back to Nigeria, but their popularity would soon fade with his influential mother Funmilayo asking him to “start playing music your people understand, not jazz.” During this soul-searching period, Kuti traveled to Ghana in 1967 and started to build inspiration for a new musical direction he would christen Afrobeat.
In this present age, Afrobeats is an electronic extension following this same route, taking in Nigerian Afrobeat and Ghanaian highlife with reggae and dancehall sensibilities, which has crossed over to the mainstream and is slowly infiltrating U.S. air waves. Its global popularity is marked by Grammy wins, viral dance challenges and sold-out arena tours.
The geographical routes of pain are now transformed into a positive and defining soundtrack for migrant communities in the African diaspora to have a clearer connection to their roots via music as a safe space. However, as important as it is to look ahead, it’s just as important to reflect back on the rise of African music and its crossover into wider pop culture through a number of landmark moments across the Black Atlantic.
Born Fela Anikulapo Kuti on October 15, 1938, the pioneer of Afrobeat with a middle name meaning, “One who carries death in his pouch,” carries a fearlessness which follows his discography through honest social commentary on the dying embers of colonialism and its effect on the biggest population in Africa. Afrobeat is a genre with the familiar universal appeal of jazz, soul and Ghanaian highlife, alongside the polyrhythmic drumming foundations of the Yoruba, Ewe, and Ga tribes.
This balance of West African traditions and movements across the West parallels with the late Nigerian musician’s own personal story – leaving his motherland for England in 1958, enrolling at the Trinity College of Music in London, and forming his Koola Lobitos group with a West African and Caribbean lineup, blending jazz and highlife a few years later. The Koola Lobitos would enjoy initial success upon his return back to Nigeria, but their popularity would soon fade with his influential mother Funmilayo asking him to “start playing music your people understand, not jazz.” During this soul-searching period, Kuti traveled to Ghana in 1967 and started to build inspiration for a new musical direction he would christen Afrobeat.
In this present age, Afrobeats is an electronic extension following this same route, taking in Nigerian Afrobeat and Ghanaian highlife with reggae and dancehall sensibilities, which has crossed over to the mainstream and is slowly infiltrating U.S. air waves. Its global popularity is marked by Grammy wins, viral dance challenges and sold-out arena tours.
The geographical routes of pain are now transformed into a positive and defining soundtrack for migrant communities in the African diaspora to have a clearer connection to their roots via music as a safe space. However, as important as it is to look ahead, it’s just as important to reflect back on the rise of African music and its crossover into wider pop culture through a number of landmark moments across the Black Atlantic.
Born Fela Anikulapo Kuti on October 15, 1938, the pioneer of Afrobeat with a middle name meaning, “One who carries death in his pouch,” carries a fearlessness which follows his discography through honest social commentary on the dying embers of colonialism and its effect on the biggest population in Africa. Afrobeat is a genre with the familiar universal appeal of jazz, soul and Ghanaian highlife, alongside the polyrhythmic drumming foundations of the Yoruba, Ewe, and Ga tribes.
This balance of West African traditions and movements across the West parallels with the late Nigerian musician’s own personal story – leaving his motherland for England in 1958, enrolling at the Trinity College of Music in London, and forming his Koola Lobitos group with a West African and Caribbean lineup, blending jazz and highlife a few years later. The Koola Lobitos would enjoy initial success upon his return back to Nigeria, but their popularity would soon fade with his influential mother Funmilayo asking him to “start playing music your people understand, not jazz.” During this soul-searching period, Kuti traveled to Ghana in 1967 and started to build inspiration for a new musical direction he would christen Afrobeat.
and family problems were replaced by fewer individualized commentaries on love and marriage.
Billboard Teams Up With Afro Nation to Launch New U.S. Afrobeats Songs Chart
The 1990s would see another influential genre in the rise of Afrobeats emerge back in Accra, Ghana. Inspired by classic highlife samples, but more readily influenced by African-American global superstars in rap and hip-hop, Hiplife’s emergence in the mid-1990s owed to the exodus of highlife pastmasters and a new generation of Ghanaian youth redefining their location on the musical map with a fresh democratic government installed. Rappers such as the godfather of Hiplife Reggie Rockstone, Tic-Tac, Obrafour and Akyeame — all rapping in local languages of Twi, Ga and Ewe – boasted familiar cadences to DMX and Busta Rhymes, over West and East Coast-inspired instrumentals.
A connection between Africa and the wider diaspora was reinforced from the late 90s to the early 2000s within the UK, through regular attendance at independence day events celebrating their respective motherlands. In London and the South East, at venues like Stratford Rex and The Dominion Theatre, a subconscious change was taking place at hall parties through Hiplife alongside Afro-Pop and Naija R&B, with a young generation of British birth and West African heritage referencing songs to stay connected to their mother tongues and build pride through this annual sense of community.
The Black African population within England and Wales was higher than their Caribbean counterparts for the first time, with this same demographic also having greater levels of entry into higher education. This growing population and their route into higher education would soon plant the seeds for an influential rave scene emerging from the Afro-Caribbean Societies at key universities around the M25 of London and the further north in the East Midlands of the UK.
Billboard Teams Up With Afro Nation to Launch New U.S. Afrobeats Songs Chart
The 1990s would see another influential genre in the rise of Afrobeats emerge back in Accra, Ghana. Inspired by classic highlife samples, but more readily influenced by African-American global superstars in rap and hip-hop, Hiplife’s emergence in the mid-1990s owed to the exodus of highlife pastmasters and a new generation of Ghanaian youth redefining their location on the musical map with a fresh democratic government installed. Rappers such as the godfather of Hiplife Reggie Rockstone, Tic-Tac, Obrafour and Akyeame — all rapping in local languages of Twi, Ga and Ewe – boasted familiar cadences to DMX and Busta Rhymes, over West and East Coast-inspired instrumentals.
A connection between Africa and the wider diaspora was reinforced from the late 90s to the early 2000s within the UK, through regular attendance at independence day events celebrating their respective motherlands. In London and the South East, at venues like Stratford Rex and The Dominion Theatre, a subconscious change was taking place at hall parties through Hiplife alongside Afro-Pop and Naija R&B, with a young generation of British birth and West African heritage referencing songs to stay connected to their mother tongues and build pride through this annual sense of community.
The Black African population within England and Wales was higher than their Caribbean counterparts for the first time, with this same demographic also having greater levels of entry into higher education. This growing population and their route into higher education would soon plant the seeds for an influential rave scene emerging from the Afro-Caribbean Societies at key universities around the M25 of London and the further north in the East Midlands of the UK.
