Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2016

So Davido's output this year basically sucked right?

was also not super impressed w/ burna boy's tape

Pree Me is good. I also liked three of the songs on Davido's EP. None of them are better than The Money, but not much is.

The thing is... I've never heard of afrobeats as a genre marker outside of in a Nigerian/West African context. If you say Afrobeats in SA, they'll just look at you funny. Afropop, they can live with. I'm guessing the same goes for Kenya or any other African country where they make modern sounding popular music.

i think its different between South Africa and the other countries of Africa, Afrobeats & Afropop were used fairly generically when i was in Kenya (granted that was years ago now). But I think that SA has always kinda distanced its musical traditions from the rest of the continent, at least post-apartheid, and stick with there own genre markers because of it. But their pop music gets labelled afropop (for obvious naming convention reasons) so they to live with it.

SA has (obviously) had a different sort of history compared to the other nations of sub-saharan africa and i think their music is one reflection of that.

also i agree on Davido, he was on a steep decline this year.

I should adjust the last line of my earlier post to 'post-colonial history'

Pree Me is good. I also liked three of the songs on Davido's EP. None of them are better than The Money, but not much is.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Thursday, December 15, 2016 3:04 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'the money' is like his 9th best single or something though.

I don't disagree with that.

it's funny that the two afropop artists really getting the western push - davido and wizkid - mostly spent 2016 failing to get long-awaited albums out

but something i've always said about genres or scenes is that their health can be measured in how good the b-tier artists are, not the auteurs and stars and a-listers.

I guess the main reason for them not getting albums out is their attempt to breach the western markets and not quite figuring out how. Your point still stands though. .

davido got a project out and it was bad

wizkid spent part of the year appearing on the year's most streamed record. i think they're just being strategic w/ rolling him out, not 'failing'.

Wizkid did try to crossover on his own, though. Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-EUPC7SGaw

It went exactly nowhere.

The weird thing to me is that the crossover moments on Davido's EP, the Tinashe song and the ATL trap joint were the songs I liked the best on it. I had to overcome a bit of initial resistance with regards to the Tinashe joint but it's really pretty good. She overdoes it in the video though.

he released one records where he was a bit player along w/ two singers and a rapper, i don't think that qualifies as an effort to 'cross over.' that wasn't pushed to radio, it didn't get a video

labels monetize 'artist development' now, i'm sure that's all that's happening here

the Davido ep is fine, not bad

the Eva Alordiah album is excellent throughout, dare I say the best afrobeats album of the year that I heard?

Judging from what's been nominated so far we're in for a repeat of no afropop songs placing in the ilx poll because everyone likes different ones; here are mine I guess

1. Mazi Chukz ft. Maleek Berry - Dem Hail
2. Yemi Alade - Koffi Anan
3. Kiss Daniel - Mama
4. Krishane ft. Patoranking - Inconsiderate
5. Tekno - Pana
6. ShiiKane - Loke
7. Kwamz & Flava - Take Over
8. Eva Alordiah ft. Phyno & Reminisce - Kanayo
9. Babes Wodumo ft. Mampintsha - Wololo
10. Young John ft. Lil Kesh - Bend Down Select
11. Mella ft. P-Square - Ginger
12. Serge Beynaud - Remanbélé
13. AY ft. Diamond Platnumz - Zigo (Remix)
14. Stunnah Gee ft. Davido - Dengeme
15. Reniss - La Sauce

yeah, i don't know there was any one song to rally around this year, will probably vote Wololo higher than any other afropop. that said, maybe the Kiss Daniel album in the album poll? I will be voting that one really high, seemed well loved earlier.

kiss daniel is one of my favs this year for sure album wise

kontrol is prob my highest individual song

classixx - whatever I want (young john da wicked producer rmx)

this is so fuckin' good and accesses the actual good song i was certain was buried in the og

i luv "mama," "kontrol," "inconsiderate," "oh yay," sugarboy's "hola hola"

didn't really discuss Uhuru in this thread at all this year, they remained consistent in their appearances though

Jah Prayzah ft Uhuru - Tenge Doro Mdhara Vachauya ---This is a great song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbPpQmfWdmg

Mzee & Rafiki ft Uhuru - Domba ----this is pretty run of the mill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0OtFOI9AIQ

Vee Mampeezy ft Uhuru, DJ Buckz, Mapho ---not amazing but a nice tune, attempts a Y-tjukutja style break at the end, just not as great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir4oXnXl0Bg

also been listening to this non-uhuru song alot over the last week, pretty love song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OStQJPpYudY

discovered iray mvmt's soundcloud - seems like a good hub for a lot of the afrobeats stuff emerging in the uk

https://soundcloud.com/iraymvmt

also this ep from a year ago is great!

https://soundcloud.com/dj-pmontana/sets/p-montana-loves-afrobeats

"Mama", "Kofi Anan," & Tiwa Savage "If I Start to Talk" are 3 of my faves

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/from-wizkid-to-shiikane-the-gunpowder-mix-of-afrobeats-is-catching-fire

Nice Lex overview

Dope piece, lex! The Shiikane sisters are actually London based. I recently discovered that we have mutual friends.

Nice piece, Lex, a really good introduction/overview indeed. One tiny correction though: Although Tekno is a very able producer, he has never (so far) produced any of his own singles.  He has only produced songs for other artists (and then often guests on vocals as well) - think Victoria Kimani's "Show", Bracket's "Panya" and Rima's "Feeling You". "Pana" was in fact produced by Krizbeatz, "the Drummer Boy". 

On that note, and with high hopes for 2017:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7633323/rb-hip-hop-artists-to-watch-in-2017

(You need to scroll down quite a bit, but it's worth it.)

just seen this thread, glad you guys liked the piece. i haven't written much about afrobeats in general bc i think i'm so far from an authority but i had to really cram artists and tracks into that, and excise a lot of others, so i'm going to try to change this in 2017.

any reason tekno hasn't produced his own stuff?

Not sure why Tekno doesn't produce any of his own stuff. Not confident enough? Label policy (DJ Coublon and Selebobo are his labelmates)? Or is he just being smart by keeping things separate? It's rare enough for Nigerian singers to be producers as well to begin with, but Tekno's position seems pretty much unique. Now that he's made it into the big league and an album is in the works it will be interesting to see if there are any self-produced tracks on it.

Our favourite boy's most recent production job:

Stonebwoy ft. Tekno, "Last Station"
https://soundcloud.com/afro-songz/stonebwoy-last-station-ft-tekno

There's a new thread for 2017: rolling afropop / afrobeats 2017

Late but hopefully welcome: playlist for the thread for the year is finalized and closed.

ILM's Rolling Afrobeat & Afropop Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

It's always welcome, forks. Thanks for the good work!

http://media.giphy.com/media/gFwZfXIqD0eNW/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5rMfLJKwIE

Although many locals refer to all the new pop in Nigeria as “hip-hop”—even though much of it is not really hip-hop as we know it—the term the local industry folks prefer is “Naija pop.” “Afrobeats” is also used by some, but Ade judges it a term imposed from the outside—a kind of appropriation—and also far too general to have much meaning. Seun Kuti sees a different appropriation here, the adding of an “s” to his father’s genre coinage of the 1970s, and in that, Seun senses a certain “insecurity” among those producing and marketing the new music; he predicts the term Afrobeats will not last long.

http://www.afropop.org/34229/dispatch-from-nigeria-3/

With your permission, let me re-post this on the 2017 thread:
rolling afropop / afrobeats 2017