It is no doubt that afrobeats has risen as a global sensation. We even have non-African artistes releasing either releasing afrobeats albums or including the sound on their albums. We saw this with Beyonce’s twelfth studio album titled "Lion is King: Gift", “Woman” the first track on Doja Cat’s third studio album “Planet Her”, and on Nickiminaj’s latest studio album, we hear the afrobeat sound on the track “Needle” featuring Drake. 

And I know when people say international our first thought goes to the West. However, the movement of pushing afrobeat and the rich African culture is more than the west. afrobeat is a musical revolution that the world has yet to see more of. 

I will go ahead to highlight 10 women who have carried the tedious and delicate responsibility of pushing afrobeat beyond our borders. 

Here are the 10 women placing Afrobeat on the world map 

10. Temi Adeniji

Temi Adenji is Warner Music Africa’s Senior VP of Sub-Saharan Africa and special projects. She was recognized by Billboard in the 2024 International Power Players publication and 2023 Women in Music. Warner Music African in collaboration with Chocolate City contributed to the success of CKay’s song “Love Nwantiti”. This song became the biggest export from the continent in 2021. Temi Adeniji, in an interview with Music week explains that this was the first M&A deal where a label came in, invested, and took a piece of the business on the continent. This brings us to recognize the undeniably hardworking and talented Aibee Adeboye, the Vice president of Chocolate City.

9. Tiwa Savage

Tiwa Savage can be classified as one of those who ran so the new generation can walk. Having entered the Nigerian music scene with a hit single “Kele Kele Love”. She has witnessed astronomical growth since then. Tiwatope Omolara Savage is currently one of Spotify’s most streamed female African artists across Sub-Saharan Africa. She has nurtured a reputation as the most active participant in the African music industry for more than a decade. 

She was featured on Beyonce’s Lion the King album. She is also not a stranger to climbing global stages as she has performed in King Charles III’s coronation ceremony, the Mobo Awards, the Global Citizens Festival, and the popular 02 Arena. Tiwa has won at least 20 career awards, including MTV Africa Music Awards and Channel O Music Video Awards.

8. Director Pink

We have established that the African music industry is a male-dominated space. However, no part of the entertainment industry conveys a more patriarchal structure than the technical aspect, and this cuts across the globe. Praise Onyeagwalam, Nigeria’s female music director, best known as Director Pink, is the founder of Pinkline Films. Behind the camera, she works extremely hard to make sure that your favorite artistes deliver the perfect music videos. Her remarkable imprint can be seen in smash hits like Running to You by Chike, Abracadabra by Rexxie, Only Fine Girl by Spyro, Egwu by Chike, Dangerous by Cheque, and other numerous visually appealing songs. She won AFRIMMMA’s Best Video Director 2023 award and has been nominated for many other awards. 

7. Rima Tahini

Rima Tahini is the Director of A&R at Mavin Global and Senior Advisor at Kupanda Capital. Before venturing into the entertainment industry, she won the esteemed Allan Gray Gold Prize for Excellence in Entrepreneurship. Rima found a way to merge her degree with her passion for the entertainment industry. Rima is responsible for managing and maintaining the output from all artists under the label, Mavins Record, including music videos, performances, and merchandise. She has played a key role in the growth of Mavin Global and the birth of new Nigerian superstars like Rema and Ayra Star.

6. Bloody Civilian

Bloody Civilian adorns herself with an array of talent- From singing to songwriting to producing to directing. Emoseh Khamofu, professionally known as Bloody Civilian became the first female Grammy-nominated producer from Nigeria for her song, “Wake Up” featuring Rema on the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” soundtrack. In 2022, she broke into the industry with her well-received debut single, “How To Kill A Man”. This marked the first single from her debut EP, “Anger Management”. Since then, Bloody Civilian has contributed to major projects including a soundtrack for “One Love: The Movie”, a biopic of Bob Marley. 

5. Dalia Dias

Dalia Dias is a Nigerian-Egyptian creative video and photography director. One of her super early music videos was High Roller by Teezee & Boj of DRB Lasgidi. Her diversity, open mindset and well-traveled nature make it easy for Dalia to contribute greatly to global pop culture, from the UK, to the US, and back to Nigeria. Playing a key role in bringing music videos to life, she has steered the direction of music videos for various tracks, including Cavemens’ Adugo, Davido’s Champion Sound featuring Focalistic, City Girls’ Twerk featuring Cardi B, Buju Banton’s Blessed, Lala by Davido featuring Ckay and several others.

4. Amaarae

Amaarae, a Ghanaian-Nigerian singer, upon the release of her sophomore album- “Fountain Baby”, became the first female Ghanaian musician to gain over a billion streams across all major streaming platforms. Ama Serwah Genfi, popularly known as Amaarae is not only an international persona for her music. Her unique style, correspondingly, puts her in the spotlight and places her on Vogue’s top 100 style influencers. Pitchfork labeled her debut album “Angels You Don’t Know” the Best New Music” and went ahead to name it the 19th best album of 2020. Amaarae is not only pushing Afrobeat to the global scene, but also other subgenres that are worthy of recognition such as Afro-fusion, pop-punk, alt-R&B, and progressive house. She is currently an opener for Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N Sweet tour 

3. Stephanie Okocha

“We built Panda Entertainment to be a 360 label services and publishing company that caters to the needs of both budding and prominent acts alike,” Stephanie Okocha, a Team lead at Panda Entertainment, stated in an interview with Itty Okim in this edition of our Women’s Month Special. Panda Entertainment deals with label services, recording camps, movie production companies, music publishing, and event management.

She is a renowned Talent and Label Services Manager with over nine years of experience, previously managing The Cavemen and currently managing Tempoe. Tempoe is the producer behind global hits like Soso, Love Nwantiti, Soweto, etc.

2. Ayra Star

Ayra Starr entered the Afrobeat industry and immediately started dominating charts and playlists. Her debut album, “19 & Dangerous” includes “Bloody Samaritan” which shot her career to great heights with more than 74 million streams on Spotify. This amazing body of work was followed by a smashing single Rush. Rush has accumulated almost 400 million streams on Spotify--a summer hit. This song was nominated for Best African Music Performance at the Grammys. 

\Upon the release of her sophomore album, Ayra became the first Nigerian female artiste to debut on the Billboard 200 chart . The superstar has worked with artistes like: Aya Nakamura, Coldplay, Rvssian, Rauw Alejandro, Anitta, Giveon, David Guetta, Lil Durk, and so many more global artistes. Her afrobeats sound remains undiluted, while she keeps up a feature-run

1. Tems

Tems as a global phenomenon started with the virality of the summer hit with Wizkid titled Essence. This collaboration was nominated for the Grammy award for the Best Global music performance. This song also won several awards at the BET Awards, NAACP Image Awards, The Headies Awards and at the Soul Train Music Awards. After this, we couldn’t stop seeing Tems on international collaborations, From her song being sampled on Future’s "Wait for You", to co-writing with Rihanna on "Life Me Up" and performing "No Woman No Cry" on Black Panther Wakanda Forever soundtrack. 

In March 2024, Temilade Openiyi became the first African singer to be awarded a Billboard Women Music Award, which she received under the Breakthrough category. Tems has performed on so many global stages and platforms: Coachella, Tiny Desk performance, The Tonight Show, NBA Star Show, and many others.

We focus on these women not just because of the numbers they have racked up over time (even though numbers don’t lie.), but because of the amount of hard work, diligence, perseverance, and versatility they bring into the African music industry. We should never get tired of celebrating women thriving in male-dominated fields.