Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a style created in Nigeria by Fela Kuti that combines West African highlife and Yoruba rhythms with American funk and jazz.
Large bands play long tracks built on interlocking guitar lines, a horn section, organ and layered percussion, with call-and-response vocals and often political lyrics in Pidgin English. Fela Kuti and drummer Tony Allen developed it in Lagos around the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is band-based and groove-heavy, unlike Afrobeats with an 's', which is the newer electronic pop from the same region.
Artists it is known for: Fela Kuti, Tony Allen, Seun Kuti, Antibalas.
- Family
- African
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Lagos, late 1960s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have afrobeat among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Afrobeat artists
Burna Boy
Tems
Rema
Asake
Wizkid
Davido
Ayra Starr
Fireboy DML
Blaqbonez
VictonyThe afrobeat artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.