afrobeats, what's next?
It seems the genre is creatively dull at the moment and it would take producers to help it out of the creative rut.
Afrobeats seems to be at a crossroads today.
After its rapid rise from the late 90s to 2010 and its domineering arc in the subsequent decade, fronted by the swashbuckling big three (and its extended version, Top 5 including Olamide and Tiwa Savage), afrobeats has an identity crisis.
Today, some of the genre's biggest names are disassociating from it. The reasons range from the blurry origin and meaning of the name afrobeats and what some consider to be its ability to put an artist in a box.
While that has been going on, earlier this year, fans ranted online on the genre's over-reliance on log drums, a staple of amapiano production. Even tastemakers joined the discussion and criticized the penchant for artists and producers to use amapiano as a crutch to score quick pop hits.
Albums seem not to be cultural statements like they once were and feel like half-baked afterthoughts. While there is a glut of singles, it seems few are trying to move the needle like Omah Lay, with his thematic anchor of mental health, and Asake alloying amapiano, fuji and rap.
Many singers in the genre today sound like a copy of a copy of a copy, and not many are trying to broach new subject matter or push the genre creatively.
A lull in creativity happens in genres. US Hip-Hop was a wasteland in 2023. Dancehall is trying to catch the groove it had in the 90s and 2000s. Even in afrobeats, this is not the first time there seems to be a creative deficit.
For afrobeats to start kicking ass again, it needs a new sonic direction, an organic and original direction. A sonic identity that doesn't borrow elements from Ghana or South Africa. It is time to put the Naija sauce back in Afrobeats.
The producers need to go back into the studio and create organic sounds.
Also, the culture needs to start taking creative risks. There are too many lazy attempts at scoring a streaming hit instead of working on a song with a huge cultural impact.
We have the artists and the producers. We need to roll up our sleeves and create the dopest music possible.
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Went through Don Jazzy’s page of songs he produced in the early 2000s and I said to myself, “How much Nigerian music has fallen apart”. The originality they embodied back then, the joy of those beats, the lyrics, etc, you can tell that they were putting their backs into things and thoroughly trying to make music that will last and be remembered for decades. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the musicians and producers of today.