rolling afropop / afrobeats 2017

hope you don't mind: i jacked that for the thread playlist as well.

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, June 9, 2017 7:41 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no probs, but be aware most of the tracks are not from 2017

never a stickler about that

"Loose Guard", the new Flavour featuring Phyno, is a beauty. Finally, a perfect blend of the classic Young John sound and current post-kayidawave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GakI5IS4SSg

Also, damn!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvOWpwOR2UU

Vision DJ ft. Samini, "Like December".

Another Juls joint.

Talking about Juls, surely people have noticed Leap of Faith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20bOgmbxvIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJC3XtyRXpU

Not entirely sure where to post this, but MHD has been mentioned on this thread in other years, so I'll just write a bit about him here. I loved the remix that was on the Berité mix I posted upthread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2I3pXTe3QE

But MHD is apparently a legitimately big French rapper, who calls his sound 'Afro Trap' and had a top ten hit with pt 8 (Never)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRRPt0ysfyI

His debut album MHD was released last year, and it's kinda pretty great. Much more hip-hop, I suppose, but very good.

Also, any opinions on the Wizkid album? Love the opener, the rest hasn't really caught on yet.

Saw Yemi Alade with a band (drummer and 2 keyboardists plus 2 dancers) do a good late-night gig at the Howard Theatre in DC this past weekend. Keyboardists provided some backing vocal tracks, but Yemi's vocalizing was live and her dancing (and that of her dancers) was energetic and fun

https://www.gq.com/story/diplo-africa-tour-interview

Yeah, me and this producer, E-kelly, did a song for Mr Eazi. Before I left, I was like, Hey, this is an idea for a song. I gave him the stems—the music for the beat. Then I land and he's already sent me three demo versions with new drums. And Skales has already done a new version of “Run Up” with new guitars. The records were voiced and mixed. I've never seen people so hungry and the quality so high. In America, I can't get Travis Scott to answer my text messages. I gotta go pour water on his face to wake him up and get him to voice a song. I don't mind doing that, but I also don't mind being here on the frontier, making music with all the Nigerians.

...

I'd never been to Africa, besides South Africa, and everybody in South Africa calls it fake Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2u5Gbadn7o

this is pretty great

The new Patoranking & Diamond Platinumz collabo is perfect.

https://youtu.be/ZjN4agWqTdc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwC1xMwxVnI

I hope you enjoy that nice piano
And The Patoranking I have on repeat is This Kind Love, which has a video out this year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGJuX7Gjbdo

Seyi Shay is still one of the most interesting too. Yolo Yolo also now has a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I2UK8kFzAM

And since this thread has been dreadfully under-used, here's one more for cuties and Tekno in the middle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPe57sFzjhw

Just got onto this last night. Never heard of Diron Animal, but he's Angolan by way of Portugal and is also in a Portuguese band called Throes + the Shine. His solo album is pretty much all party jams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poBQolEtlM8

Diron Animal Album out on Soundways I should checkout.

Patoranking "This Kind Love" is nice. I like the horn sample

diron animal is great!

Christ, so much good stuff in here! How did I miss this thread for so long?

I've been looking into Team Salut, who produced the Seyi Shay single posted upthread and a few other Eugy tracks. They seem so be doing exactly the kind of stuff I wanna hear in 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxL25sKo5so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9fwJGfinvo

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

what did you guys think of the Unforgettable clip, I don't care much for Montana and I cringe a little, but there are proper dance moves found in Kampala

the new Alade should drop in a matter of days, there's new singles being posted on youtube
I feel all fuzzy after listening to her french versions, that are as approximate as they are charming

I think Na Wash has never been posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75GFzWtHQrg

I'm really getting into Lil Kesh. He's one fire right now, here's the latest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGZFbMI2NiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNUgqIQhIUQ

And more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyWK_dLxPUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3c6i5vK_ck

also previously unposted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h_T3nFjZSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLhvpLF-Es
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxuZlN3e98

I love this so much!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8LFwC1nEpU

People seem to like Tony Allen's jazz project, The Source this year, but are ignoring his collaboration with Chicago Afrobeat Project. I'm seeing them live on the 18th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoaGsn5epuA&feature=youtu.be

Sauti Sol are great. I love Nishike especially.

For those compiling your year-end lists, this playlist includes all the available tracks on this thread, organized roughly chronologically in order of mention:

ILM's 2017 Rolling Afropop and Afrobeats Thread Spotify Playlist

Right now I think my 2017 top looks like this (top 20)

Patoranking - Love you die (ft. Diamond Platnumz)
Juls - Early
Wizkid - African Bad Gyal
Tekno - Maria
Olamide - Wo!
Dotman - My Woman
Kcee - Juice (ft. Maleek Berry)
Akothee - Tucheze
Lil Kesh - Rora
Lil Kesh - No Fake Love
Fally Ipupa - Eloko Oyo
Tekno - Samantha
Seyi Shay - Your Matter
Kiss Daniel - Yeba
D'banj - It's Not a Lie
Kcee - Romantic Call
Wizkid - Come Closer
Orezi - Just like that
Becca - Na Wash
Eugy - Prize

excluding: Daddy Yo, This Kind Love, Yolo Yolo, Tonight, Akrakabo, Leg Over etc etc (2016) and You Alright Yeah (great but too British)

Aw is Akrakabo 2016? That's by far my favorite :(

Ah no I speak nonsense, it's 2017. I also just realized he says Tout le monde debout ehh and not Tout le monde est dévoué.

Yay, then I can keep it on my list :)

I love Kidi’s Odo - not sure if it’s been posted as my connection is acting up.

https://youtu.be/jINRh9t3hw0

Has Diamond Platnumz ever shown more attitude and been clearer that he has the chops to be the East African Wizkid ? Rick Ross in the midddle. Quite a decent hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1iHgDTplfw

Not really seeing any much of any support for music listed here on year-end lists posted on another thread. Fader had a Davido song. Jon Caramanica at the NY Times has gone for Latin trap this year instead. Not much reggae dancehall or soca either.

It was supposed to be Wizkid's big breakout year but instead... he feels weirdly muted now. He was all over the place, just not where it mattered. I guess the main problem is that although most of the stuff he did this year was good, he just didn't have that one undeniable song?

No publicist in the US or U.K. has successfully marketed the sound to radio, streaming sites and critics

is Unforgettable afropop?

it was wizkid's song & they took him off it

i think it just took too long for ppl to push it & fucking drake & ed sheeran types capitalized off the sound before outside artists could

For your curiosity, here's a data-generated playlist of the songs most distinctively popular among afrobeats fans on Spotify in 2017:

https://open.spotify.com/user/particledetector/playlist/6VNHhLOXEkSMCWvIdYc1vB

I'm not really surprised that the list is mainly sweet stuff. Easy (Jeje) is great. You relate to these things differently if you're from Nigeria. Or is that data biased somewhat.

Spotify does choose to push certain labels, etc.

drake & ed sheeran types capitalized off the sound before outside artists could

This explains radio and spotify to some degree, but too many critics seam to just want to listen to American rap and indie and not go beyond that

Spotify, of course, isn't actually available in any African countries yet, so this is all based on fans in (or signing up in) countries where it's available...

personally didn't feel it was a great year for afropop. lots of good songs, but fewer than in previous years that matched my tastes
(ditto for american pop, for the record!)

I probably forgot to post it but Niniola's Maradona is probably in my top 5 this year. Her album is great too - even though her cover art is pretty bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCbjK4259RM

the cover art is Blacksad!
http://www.europecomics.com/serie/blacksad/
was there a movie or something?

The Maradona cover is good - the album cover is bad, lol. I have no info about the blacksad connection - news to me!

The new Yemi Alade album is excellent & the Olamide that dropped a month ago has plenty of nice Young John jams.