Afrobeats has been described by Al Jazeera as “one of Africa’s biggest cultural exports”.  Amidst the celebration of this great feat is the jarring realization that the globalization of this catchy and upbeat genre has come with unique problems. Even the lauding description by Al Jazeera clumps African music together with no room to explore diversity. 

International recognition of Afrobeats happened gradually and was long overdue. This genre houses West African pop music with a mix of hip-hop, dancehall, R&B, and EDM. One would wonder why it took this long for the world to catch up with this high vibrational sound, and racial subjugation is a viable answer to this question. According to Davido in his interview with Business Untitled “Ten years ago, it wasn’t cool to be African. Nigerians used to lie they were from Jamaica”, he said . Now Africans in Diaspora can easily say they are going to a Davido concert without fear of prejudice.  Afrobeats penetrated the international market and has become as ubiquitous as R&B, soul, jazz, funk, hip-hop, etc

Nigerian luminaries like D'Banj, 2Face, P-Square, Wizkid, and Davido set the stage. In 2012, D’banj took the spotlight with his hit single Oliver Twist, which made the top 10 on the official UK Singles Chart. Then came Wizkid’s collaboration with Canadian rapper Drake which changed the game for Afrobeats and sailed it on the boat of Western digestion.  

The wave of success hit with the rambunctious need to commodify this unfamiliar sound that now dominates Western parties—a marketing label the West would understand—and just like that western DJs named the umbrella term Afrobeats. 

Afrobeats should not be mistaken for Afrobeat even though both genres have their roots in West Africa. Afrobeat is a socially conscious music that brings together funk, jazz, highlife and indigenous African sound. Fela is the father of Afrobeat, as the term was coined and popularized by him. Afrobeats, on the other hand, is a loose term that groups several African pop music genres—a lazy “s” that differentiates it from Fela’s sound. 

The term Afrobeats slowly opened a cankerworm and African artistes began to see the consequences. The genre is used by Westerners as a catch-all term for all popular music emanating from the African continent–As long as you are African, you are making Afrobeats. A larger continuance of the question “Are you from Nigeria? I have a friend in Botswana”. 

Tyla, a South African Amapiano artiste, who broke into the global conversation with her song “Water”,  has constantly been referred to by almost all award shows as an Afrobeats artiste. Additionally, this year’s Grammy nominations included only Nigerian artistes (Afrobeats artistes) in the Best African Music Performance category. A category that is meant to cater to the wide variety of popular music coming out of Africa is reduced to just Afrobeats. Maybe, this is the price to be paid for global approval.

This insouciant attitude by Westerners towards African music has triggered a well-meaning but feckless protest from popular Afrobeats artistes who desired to dissociate themselves from the  term. Artistes like Davido, and Burna Boy labelled their music Afrofusion, while Wizkid took to his Instagram story and proudly pronounced “Don’t call me that, hoe! I’m not Afro anything, bitch!'”

While the tantrums can be understood, it will be sinful to deny that the term Afrobeats hasn’t propelled African artistes. It gave the world a name to call the growing genre and this immense growth has come with vast economic benefits. Recently, Wizkid, Asake and Burna Boy have all sold out O2 UK with over 20,000 seating capacity. Davido collaborated with Puma. And Ayra Star, Rema, and Asake partnered with Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited.

As long as Afrobeats artistes are not going to reject international awards under the Afrobeats category, then there is a need to focus and protect what is important while simultaneously advocating for the recognition of other genres within the continent. 

The capitalist vultures could not watch Afrobeats blow up on the global scene without the incessant urge to tap in.  Almost all the relevant Afrobeats stars have Western ties with their music: Davido is signed to RCA Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. Wizkid also signed a multi-album deal with RCA Records. Burna Boy is signed to Atlantic Records in the US and Warner Music Group internationally. CKay is signed to Warner Music South African and Atlantic Records. And Tiwa Savage is signed to Universal Music Group (UMG).  

Chidi Okeke, founder and CEO of Groove Platforms in his interview with Business Day NG, discusses why Afrobeats artistes sealing international deals pose a challenge at home. He stated that most of the A-list Afrobeats artists signed to foreign labels become too expensive for local labels and event companies to hire their services, not necessarily because the artists are demanding more money, but because the labels that manage them now set the price and determine where their music is heard.

This development has put Afrobeats on a Western leash. After all, he who pays the piper dictates its tune. What happens when the genre no longer serves the capitalist purpose? What happens when they are asked to dilute their sound to expand consumption? What happens to the cultural impact Afrobeats is supposed to embody? 

Another consequence of international recognition of this genre is the jarring reliance on foreign validation by keen listeners. This year alone, Ayra Star opened Coldplay’s “Music of the Spheres” tour; became the African act with the most listeners on Spotify; performed at Afro Nation, Wireless Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Blast Fest, etc. Her global hit “Rush” was listed by Apple music as part of its top 10 Nigerian songs of all time; and many more achievements under her belt, in a year! Yet, her fans reduced these achievements to nothing because she was snubbed by the Grammys and Billboard Music Awards. 

Understandably, stans hope for their favorite acts to receive accolades for their work. However,  it's a lost plot because primary consumers of Afrobeats are starting to forget that the Billboard US does not dictate an artiste’s entire career. Nigeria is the home of Afrobeats and Afrobeats artistes are successful in Nigeria.  The refusal of acknowledgement from white executives should never be a metric of success. 

It's also important to note that Afrobeats failed to push out any new acts this year. This ominous finding ought to recall the genre's top executive back to the drawing board. 

These minor or major problems, however a person desires to look at it, remind Afrobeats artistes that nothing solid is at home. There is nothing new stars can build on, there are no solid awards that can validate primary consumers, and if the music big dogs collectively decide to stop supporting our artistes, the genre may lay comatose.

Ati Eleojo Theodore, a Nigerian producer, who fears for the genre's future amid globalisation prescribes solutions he believes will stifle the aforementioned issues. “All of us as stakeholders have to collectively, build at home in any way possible,” he says .

 “The top guys should give back,  people investing in music shouldn’t only focus on signing artists. There will be better opportunities if they invest in venues and other forms of infrastructure.”

Theodore also urges consumers to support smaller talents by streaming, buying their merchandise, and going for their shows.

 As Joey Akan, a music journalist, tweeted “Without local development, we're stuck in a game of musical chairs, hoping that the music continues to play.”