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Although he has performed at the UK’s largest festival in
the past, this will be his first time on the renowned main stage, which has
served as Glastonbury’s central attraction for several decades.
Afrobeats artists Ayra Starr and Tems performed at the
Glastonbury Festival on Saturday. Starr performed on the Pyramid Stage, while
Tems performed on the Other Stage.
Afrobeats, originating in West Africa, has swiftly gained
global prominence, captivating audiences and dominating music charts worldwide.
The Afrobeats genre has experienced remarkable growth on
Spotify, with a staggering 1,200% increase since 2017. This surge in popularity
is further underscored by the recent achievement of Afrobeats artists
headlining major UK festivals, signaling a significant milestone in the genre’s
trajectory.
“The moment has arrived,” Starr informed BBC News. “This has
been a long-awaited development, and it is rightfully ours.”
In this regard, it is pertinent to inquire into the essence
of Afrobeats and the factors contributing to its remarkable ascent.
West African origins
The genre has its roots in Nigeria and Ghana, and started
rising rapidly in popularity in the 2010s, with early hits from artists like
Fuse ODG and D'banj.
It is not to be confused with "Afrobeat" - minus
the "s". That is a movement created in the 1960s and 1970s by the
artist and activist Fela Kuti.
Kuti's musical style is a fusion of traditional African
rhythms with funk, jazz and highlife.
Coincidentally, Kuti himself played at Glastonbury in 1984,
and this year, his son Femi Kuti played on the Pyramid Stage.
But Afrobeats, with an "s", is a completely
different sound. It is generally seen as a fusion of traditional West African
musical styles with Western pop, rap and dancehall.
"Afrobeat spoke to a much older audience," said DJ
Edu, who hosts BBC 1Xtra's AfroSounds show.
"Afrobeats has been driven a lot by social media,"
he said, adding that young people, travelling to different parts of the world,
also helped spread the sound.
There were challenges, of course. DJ Edu said that a lot of
people who started out making Afrobeats were not clued up about the music
industry.
"They were just kids making music from their bedrooms,
not worrying about streaming or royalties. That was the big problem, there was
no structure," he said.
But as bigger artists started making headway, younger ones
were able to learn from them and chart their own route in the industry, he
added.
DJs in the UK started fusing pop music with Nigerian and
Ghanaian beats, taking the sounds to new audiences.
Songs from the genre regularly started crossing into the
mainstream, with its first big global success being the release of Oliver Twist
by the artist D'banj in 2012.
The song made the top 10 on the official UK Singles Chart
and was number two in the UK R&B Charts.
It is often described as the first time Afrobeats really
took hold in the UK.
Rise in popularity
From then on, Afrobeats quickly spread around the world. It
has often been described as one of Africa's biggest cultural exports.
"We've been waiting for the globalisation of Afrobeats,
and it's happening now," Starr said, speaking ahead of her Glastonbury
performance.
"But it’s not just what you're seeing today. It's years
and generations of musicians and hard work that’s made it what it is now."
TikTok and YouTube - where many people discover new music -
have played a big part in taking Afrobeats to new audiences in the UK, the US
and beyond.
One example is Nigerian artist CKay's Love Nwantiti, which
went viral on the app and became the most Shazam-ed song in the world in 2021.
Songs by singers Davido, Burna Boy and Wizkid have also
gained popularity through their TikTok dance routines.
Collaborations with the likes of Beyoncé, Drake and Justin
Bieber have also helped lift the Afrobeats scene to new heights.
For example, Drake featured Wizkid on 2016's One Dance -
which helped put a spotlight on the singer and the genre he represents.
In the summer of 2023, Burna Boy made history when he became
the first African artist to headline a stadium show in the UK in front of a
sold-out crowd of 60,000 at the London Stadium.
"The genre's rise has been nothing short of
meteoric," Sheniece Charway, YouTube's artists' relations manager for
black music and culture, told BBC News.
"Afrobeats has ignited a global revolution, and it's
captivating trajectory shows no sign of slowing."
"Popular music is pop music and Afrobeats has become
popular music globally," she added.
"We are seeing the likes of Wizkid, Libianca and Burna
Boy all having global success, which shows that their audience is
everywhere."
In a sign of the genre's huge global popularity, it has been
included as a category in a number of major awards.
Billboard in the US recently added an Afrobeats category,
with Burna Boy and fellow Nigerian star Rema both recognised at the event in
November.
Burna Boy, who has also been the recipient of a Grammy,
dedicated his award "to Africa and every artist coming out of Africa
now".
Meanwhile Rema won a gong for his near-ubiquitous song Calm
Down, which has smashed multiple streaming and chart records.
The track, which featured Selena Gomez, became the first
African artist-led track to hit a billion streams on Spotify.
Accepting the Billboard award for best Afrobeats song, Rema
thanked his fans and called the prize "a celebration of unity and the
global domination of Afrobeats".
The MTV VMAs, Grammys and American Music Awards have also
recently added the category of best Afrobeats.
DJ Edu says this recognition has meant a lot to Afrobeats
artists.
"[It] shows there's a light at the end of the tunnel
for this music," he said.
People are 'infatuated'
For Starr, part of the reason for Afrobeats' huge growth is
the fact the sound is overwhelmingly positive.
"Afrobeats is enjoyment. You have to enjoy yourself,
you have to be at a club or at a party to make the music that people want to
dance to. And we like to dance," she said.
"I feel like that's why it's our time. I think God has
made it like that - because we make positive music, we make high vibrational
music."
Meanwhile in the UK, British artists have been developing
their own style and sound, such as Afroswing, which merges Afrobeats with
dancehall, grime, rap and R&B.
Grammy award winning producer Jae5, based in the UK, has
produced mega-hits for Burna Boy and Dave.
"The main influence that I'm infusing things with is
the African culture," he told BBC News.
"I'll make a hip hop song and it will still have a lot
of percussive elements. I might make a ballad and I'll have more percussive
elements than a normal track. So the African sound is what is continuous in my
music. The groove of Africa is very different to the groove over here."
Having swept the globe and landed at Glastonbury, what's
next for Afrobeats?
Jae5 can see it going from strength to strength, as people
are "infatuated" by the sound.
"The world is huge and Afrobeats has so much space to
grow," he said. "And the fact that [fans] are receiving it in the way
they are is amazing."