History of Afro Pop Music

Mustafa Nazmus Sakib
5 min readNov 9, 2022

--

Afrobeats (not to be confused with Afrobeat or Afroswing) or Afro-Pop or Afro-Fusion (or Afropop or Afrofusion) is a general term used to describe the popular music of West Africa and the diaspora in which it originally developed Nigeria. Ghana and Britain in the decades 2000 and 2010. Afrobeats is less a style in itself and more a description of the merging of sounds flowing from Ghana and Nigeria. Genres such as hip life, jùjú music, high life and naija beats fused under the umbrella of “Afrobeats” in.

Afro Pop Music is mainly produced in Lagos, Accra and London. Historian and cultural critic Paul Gilroy reflects on London’s changing music scene as a result of demographic change

In his earlier book The Black Atlantic, Gilroy rejects the notion that black culture and music could be tied to a geographic region. Afro Pop Music are definitely an example of this syncretism as a transnational genre that is now going international. David Drake writes particularly about Nigerian popular music, noting that “they take trends from the US, Jamaica and Trinidad, reinvent diaspora influences and, in most cases, reinvent them entirely.

This is in contrast to the Afro Pop sound that emerged in the 2000s and 2010s. While drawing influences from Afrobeat, Afrobeats is a diverse fusion of genres including British house music, hiplife, hip-hop, dancehall and soca, jùjú music, highlife, R&B, ndombolo, naija beats, azonto and palm wine music. Unlike Afrobeat, which is a well-defined genre, Afrobeats is more of an umbrella term for contemporary West African popular music to pack into one more accessible label those diverse sounds unfamiliar to listeners in the UK, where the term was first coined.

Afro Pop Music are most easily recognized by their signature beats of percussive beats, whether electronic or instrumental. These beats are stylistically reminiscent of a variety of traditional African percussion beats found in West Africa, as well as the precursor genre, Afrobeat. Rhythm in Afro Pop Music is not just a foundation for the melody, but acts as the main character in the song, taking a leading role, sometimes equal to or more important than the lyrics and almost always more central than the others instruments. Afrobeats share a similar drive and the tempo of house music. Afrobeats generally use the 4/4 time signature common in Western music and commonly feature a 3–2 or 2–3 rhythm called a clave.

Styles of song that make up afrobeats in large part started out someday withinside the overdue 90s and early-mid-2000s. With the launching of MTV Base Africa in 2005, West Africa turned into given a huge platform via which artists ought to grow. Artists consisting of MI Abaga, Naeto C and Sarkodie have been most of the first to take benefit of this, but maximum of the artists have been simply making interpretations of American hip hop and R&B. Prior to this, organizations consisting of Trybesmen, Plantashun Boiz, and The Remedies have been early pioneers that fused cutting-edge American impacts from hip-hop and R&B with neighborhood melodies. While this allowed them to construct neighborhood audiences, it blocked them from a much broader platform because of the language boundaries in-place. P-Square launched their album Game Over in 2007, which turned into particular for its utilization of Nigerian rhythms and melodies. Meanwhile, artists consisting of Flavour N’abania have been capable of locate fulfillment through embracing older genres, consisting of highlife, and remixing it into something extra cutting-edge, as visible in his song “Nwa Baby (Ashawo Remix)”. By 2009 artists withinside the burgeoning scene have been starting to end up stars throughout the continent and beyond. The fashion of song had a whole lot of names which made it tough to marketplace out of doors of Africa.

However it wasn’t till the release of Choice FM’s New Afrobeats Radio Show’ birthed and offered through DJ Abrantee in April 2011 that the style won traction and saw ‘Afrobeats’ trending for the primary time in history. The release of the display won reputation and furnished a release pad for each UK Based and African artists to publish songs for playlist consideration. Abrantee used his daylight hours display to check day time play of Afrobeats. Some of the primary Afrobeats songs to be playlisted on daylight hours radio throughout the United Kingdom have been Mista Silva “Boom Boom tah”, May7ven’s “Ten Ten”, D’Banj’s “Oliver Twist”, and Moelogo’s “Pangolo” in March 2012. Square launched “Chop My Money (Remix)” along famous Senegalese-American artist Akon in 2012. “Oliver Twist”, launched on line through Nigerian artist D’banj withinside the summer time season of 2011 charted at wide variety nine on the United Kingdom Singles Chart in 2012 (making him the primary afrobeats artist to make it to the pinnacle 10 withinside the UK), and wide variety 2 withinside the UK R&B Mr Eazi later credited D’banj in an interview with Sway In The Morning in 2019 for assisting inspire Nigerians to embody their accents and song, as opposed to searching outwards and seeking to emulate American accents and song.

Sam Dutchy is a famous Afro Pop musician lives in the Netherlands. He was born in Imo state in Obowo L.G.A, Nigeria, in the year 1990.

He now lives in the Netherlands. He went to Imo State University in Nigeria. After completing the second year, he dropped out due to the economic crisis.

As an Afro pop musician, Sam Dutchy is becoming very popular in the western world every day.

Sam’s musical style is distinctive and has been copied by other musicians. His several distinctive and uniquely designed songs have already gone viral.

Sam Dutchy is a multi-talented musician who can perform different types of music such as afro pop, afro house, reggae tune, dance hall, afro highlife, etc. He is also a composer and can play drums and guitar.

Sam Dutchy has performed on the tracks of Dr.Alban, Bracket, Flavour. He’s been making music since he was only 12 years old. He played music in the church as a worship leader. As a musician, his journey outside of the church began when he was just 15 years old.

Sam Dutchy also formed a traditional music group called Igw Ndi Eze. He is very passionate about his music. Sam worked with Bracket (ng), Kenny B (sn/nl) and Akotee (ky) on the song creation mainly works with Nigerian producers, due to the common language. Their songs are also mostly in Nigerian or English.

In the meantime, the Dutch language has also found its way into his repertoire. For example: In August 2020, Sam vibrates in his home studio with mc promo, resulting in his song “Worstenbroodje”. This explicitly Dutch carnival song, mixed with a touch of Afro Pop Music, was played by various Dutch radio stations and proved to be a minor hit.

--

--