Afrobeats
West African pop and its export. Lagos and Accra studios, Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido and Tems, amapiano coming up from South Africa, the diaspora clubs in London, and the point at which the charts stopped treating it as a novelty.
Part of Pop
27 moments in this segment.
- - Miriam Makeba performs Pata Pata on The Ed Sullivan Show. The exiled South African singer performs the Xhosa-language song that became a worldwide hit.
- - Fela Kuti - Shakara. An early mature Afrobeat record, built on the extended vamp and call-and-response Fela made his signature.
- - Fela Kuti - Zombie. Fela's attack on the Nigerian military, whose release provoked the army raid on his Kalakuta Republic.
- - Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata (Welela version). Makeba's later re-recording of her signature song, mixed in Milan.
- - Cesaria Evora - Petit pays. The morna singer's song of longing for Cape Verde, from the album that made her an international figure.
- - Cesária Évora - Sodade. The morna that made the Cape Verdean 'barefoot diva' an international star and put Lusophone African music on world stages.
- - Cesária Évora: Nha Sentimento - 2010 documentary. A feature documentary on Cape Verde's barefoot diva, filmed near the end of her life and career.
- - Baaba Maal performing at the Opening Plenary at the New Theatre. 2011.
- - P-Square - Shekini. Official video from the Nigerian duo whose 2000s run built the continental audience Afrobeats later exported.
- - Music festival in Abuja. I attended an alternative music festival in Abuja, Nigeria Photograph/scan dated 2016.
- - Wizkid - Essence ft. Tems. The song widely called the first Afrobeats record to properly cross into the American mainstream, reaching the Billboard Hot 100 top ten.
- - Wizkid: Made in Lagos live from the O2 Arena. Wizkid's sold-out O2 Arena finale of the Made in Lagos tour, streamed globally from his own StarBoy TV channel in late 2021.
- - Burna Boy: One Night in Space, live at Madison Square Garden. Burna Boy's full headline concert at Madison Square Garden in April 2022, streamed globally and an early marker of Afrobeats at arena scale in the US.
- - The Global Rise of Afro House - DW Documentary. Deutsche Welle documentary on how South African and Angolan dance music moved from township clubs to international festival stages.
- - Salif Keita - Alegria - Itmustbelove86. Homenatge de l'afició del València Photograph dated 2023.
- - Salif Keita - Itmustbelove86. Homenatge de l'afició del València Photograph dated 2023.
- - Tyla - Water. The South African amapiano-pop single that won the first-ever Grammy for Best African Music Performance.
- - Burna Boy - City Boys. Official video from the Grammy-winning Nigerian artist's album I Told Them..., a record aimed squarely at stadium-scale Afrofusion.
- - Tyla wins the first Best African Music Performance Grammy. The South African singer accepting the newly created Grammy category for Water at the 2024 ceremony, the award that formalised Afrobeats and amapiano's arrival at the Grammys.
- - Tems - Love Me JeJe. The Nigerian singer's 2024 single, reworking a 1997 Seyi Sodimu record; it won her a Grammy for Best African Music Performance.
- - Burna Boy: African Giant live in London. Burna Boy's full London concert filmed 15 July 2024 for YouTube Music Nights, marking five years of the African Giant album.
- - Goon Flavour, Master KG and Eemoh - Ngishutheni. A 2025 South African amapiano video from the Wanitwa Mos camp behind Jerusalema, the genre now dominating dance music across the continent.
- - Asake: Tiny Desk Concert. The Nigerian Afrobeats singer stripped back behind NPR's desk in October 2025, a format that has become a standard credibility test for a live vocalist.
- - Wizkid: Long Live Lagos - HBO trailer. Trailer for HBO's 2025 documentary on Wizkid and the Lagos scene that produced modern Afrobeats.
- - Asake and DJ Snake - WORSHIP. A 2026 Afrobeats, electronic collaboration, an example of how routinely Nigerian pop now works with European dance producers.
- - Asake - Gratitude. Official 2026 video from the Nigerian artist whose fuji-and-amapiano hybrid became one of Afrobeats' most distinctive strands.
- - Ayra Starr: Tiny Desk Concert. Nigerian singer Ayra Starr's Tiny Desk set, recorded for NPR's Black Music Month programming in June 2026.
