Selling Culture: Part 3, Afrobeats
Exploring K-pop, Reggaeton, and Afrobeats
How did Afrobeats get a dedicated song chart on Billboard?
In Part 1 and 2 of this series, we took a look at the K-pop and Latin music waves, which swept the world over the past few years. In Part 3, we will explore Afrobeats, the most recent global phenomenon of the three.
*For Part 2 and 3, I am studying cultures that are not my own, so if I write anything incorrect, misleading, or offensive, please reach out.
Similarly to the other two other waves, Afrobeats was already on the rise before it achieved today’s level of recognition, popular across Africa and the UK since the beginning of the century. In fact, the term ‘Afrobeats’ originated in the U.K. club scene in the late 2000s, used to package popular music from West Africa into a label that was more accesible for UK listeners. Thus, some say it “could be seen as more of a commercial than cultural development” (1). Burna Boy pointed out in a New York Hip-Hop station, “It’s almost like joining hip-hop, R&B, and dancehall [in the US] into one thing and call[ing] it ‘Ameribeats,’” (1). Nevertheless, the term is widely used, so I will stick with it in this article.
In the two previous articles, I raised ‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘Despacito’ as events that marked the global expansion of the two waves that were on the rise in regional markets. So for Afrobeats, what would be the equivalent? Did it even happen?
Well, kind of.
There is Drake’s hit song ‘One Dance’ from 2016, made in collaboration with Nigerian artist Wizkid and British singer Kyla. At the time, it had become Spotify’s most played song ever. However, there are key differences between ‘One Dance’ and the other two songs, the most clear one being the language. While ‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘Despacito’ are mostly in Korean and Spanish, ‘One Dance’ has Drake and Kyla singing in American-sounding English (although they’re both not American). And go listen to the song, Wizkid’s part is like, a whisper.
The difference in language implies a greater difference. Language/dialect is one of the most effective ways you can convey where you are from. However, since ‘One Dance’ was not obviously in another language and released on Canadian artist Drake’s album, it did not really draw significant attention to a culture outside of North America/Europe the way the other two songs did. Many credit ‘One Dance’ as the song that gave Afrobeats huge exposure to the world, but is that really true? Were people really talking about how Afrobeats ‘One Dance’ was? We can pick out this song as a marker event in hindsight, but I don’t agree it played the same role ‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘Despacito’ did for their respective waves.
If ‘One Dance’ was not exactly the ‘Despacito’ equivalent of Afrobeats, when and how did Afrobeats blow up globally? The chart below shows interest levels in the search term ‘Afrobeats’ on Google over time:
We can see that world-wide interest levels are gradually rising since early 2010's, then sharply increase around February 2021. As mentioned above, Afrobeats was already quite popular in the UK in the early 2010's. In the late 2010’s, it also started getting more attention in the US as prominent artists like Beyonce and GoldLink released albums with Afrobeats influence. In 2019, Davido’s “Fall” was one of the top 100 most Shazam-ed songs in the US.
Now, what explains the stark increase in interest levels in 2021? Of course, social media played a huge role. In September 2021, CKay’s ‘Love Nwantiti’ went viral on Tik Tok, as well as several dance challenges related to Afrobeats.
Interestingly, this is also the time when major music businesses started marketing Afrobeats extensively. In February 2021, Spotify made a “sweeping expansion… in 80+ new markets around the world, and add[ed] 36 languages” (2). The image below shows which countries Spotify expanded to during this time:
Clearly, a large portion of the new markets is in Africa. Following this expansion, Spotify launched their ‘African Heat’ playlist and ran various marketing campaigns on social media like the #africanheatchallenge dance challenge (3). Below is also a chart from Spotify’s 2022 Q2 Shareholder Deck, breaking down where Spotify’s monthly active users come from:
Over the past few years, the percentage of users coming from ‘Rest of World’ grew significantly. On the other hand, the portion of users from North America and Europe decreased, meaning that Spotify’s focus is now on penetrating into international markets. And to do so, it is obviously necessary to invest more in local styles of music.
Furthermore, in March 2022, Billboard launched the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart in partnership with Afro Nation. Not that Spotify and Billboard aren’t genuine about celebrating diversity, but business decisions aren’t personal. They are data-driven and profit-oriented. Afrobeats was a musical style in which businesses saw great potential for revenue and heavily invested in.
I’m not saying that Afrobeats was successful because of these music businesses. It was already gaining significant global attention before 2021. Rather, I wanted to highlight how proactively businesses nowadays are seeking out local genres that might thrive in international markets, especially after the first two waves. They’re not waiting for another ‘Gangnam Style’ or ‘Despacito’ to prove that non-Anglo-American Pop can also be Pop music.
While K-pop and Latin music were also well promoted by music businesses, Afrobeats seems to have gotten a big marketing push in its rather early stages of going mainstream in the US market. The Billboard Top Latin Albums chart has been around for decades, but businesses didn’t try that hard to turn Latin music into Pop music until ‘Despacito’. Now, with the globalization of streaming services and increased awareness towards ethnic communities, companies are starting to capitalize on local genres faster and faster.
Afrobeats was already blowing up by the time businesses started latching on, but the cultural waves that follow will be even more fast-paced, diverse, and strategically commercialized. And as I keep emphasizing, spreading culture and generating profit are not mutually exclusively, nor something to be criticized when done together. It takes capital to create high quality art, and artists shouldn’t be expected to do charity.
Please note, the trajectories of these waves are largely influenced by the globalization of streaming services, the economic status of the originating nation, increasing immigrations, and many other coincidental factors. They do not indicate the superiority of a particular genre in anyway.
In Part 4, I will wrap up and introduce a few other music styles that are emerging out of regional markets, which may perhaps get a dedicated Billboard charts soon. Follow and stay tuned, so you can show off to your friends when they do!
