Afrobeat is a beautiful genre that will keep breaking boundaries until it arrives at the deserved spot and became unconscious responsive.
The reason afrobeat is still at this level is because of the nature that surrounds its origin, to be talented, promising young and hardworking is not a dicky bird in Africa where the system tries to shut you down or evacuate the source.
- RELATED: Wande Coal as the blueprints to the Nigeria Afropop music
- RELATED: Top Nigerian songs that cracked the border
The spread of Afrobeat into the diaspora is the unquestionable rose that grew from scratch, tracking back from the slightest era that would’ve cracked the global stage with the existence of internet smartphone.
Technological advancements on the continent were much clearer in the pan-African success over the past decade.
- RELATED: Burna Boy is the most Bankable Afrobeat artiste Now
- RELATED: Lists of African Grammy award winners
There has been Pre-sonic export in the form of hip-hop and Afropop in the early 2000s to mid-2000s artists like P-square, 2Baba, D’banj, Wande Coal, Duncan Mighty and others championed by Kenny Ogungbe tried to bring it to the centre stage before today.
P-Square was known to have sold over three (3) million records from their albums yet no viable analysis to translate the sales into charts entry, 2baba suffered the same fate on his face2face album.
Zero data analysis, bridge to the international market was in the thin air, Kenny Ogungbe fought but there was no backup factor to fall back to, it lingers till the last phase in the 2010s.
Superstar by Wizkid rounded off the analogue era, It was released in 2011 and was the best selling afrobeat album then, sold over five (5) millions physical copies in the 2011-2012 frame.
Post-2010 to date marked the recent enabling factor caused by internet exposure with the remarkable interrelation social media created.
Now is all fun and exhilarating, especially on Twitter where you get to be like, ‘Wizkid is great’ and someone in your mentions will go, “Um, I’m sorry but I have listened to Davido, and I think you are being dishonest here.” and then someone else pops up saying, “Your silence about Burna Boy is extremely telling.”
Establishing a healthy conversation and competition that fosters and transcend the culture, pre-2010 acts never get to enjoy the advantage during their era.
Internet exposure yielded massively to today’s afrobeat, enhancing notable charts entry, international Collaborations, and most importantly distribution of the project to a wider audience.
Artistes like Rema, Omah Lay, Fireboy DML, Joeboy, and others, that came out post-2010s are greatly flexing on it.
it is now very common to expand without much domestic moonwalk, simply because the jinx has been broken by technological advancements.