The West Has a Blinkered View of African Music
The term Afrobeats is applied to all sorts of genres, flattening them into one. Artists, media and the music industry must do better at showing off the richness of African pop
TL;DR
- The term "Afrobeats" emerged in the early 2010s as a marketing umbrella for contemporary West African dance music.
- It has since become a catch-all label for diverse African pop genres, including rap, R&B, and highlife, obscuring their individuality.
- Genres like "banku music" and "amapiano" have been limited by this broad categorization, hindering their potential development as distinct cultural forces.
- Western media and charts have also contributed to this by dropping specific African music categories in favor of broader labels or none at all.
- Artists and industry stakeholders are urged to move beyond marketing music solely as "Afrobeats" and to actively document and promote individual genres to foster a richer understanding of African music.
- Achieving this requires intentionality, documentation, and the building of substantial identities around emerging sounds, similar to how genres like grunge or hyperpop have flourished in the West.