rolling afro 2020

my tracks ballot is going to be a nightmare for sure, and Omah Lay is partic hard to narrow down. I actually most responded to "Ye Ye Ye" but also love "Lo Lo" and "Damn." I liked "Green Light" so much on the Olamide album I may have overlooked "Infinity."

tbh it's really hard to get in front of breastcrawl's military-grade radar

so otm, if I actually find a song that hasn't already been posted here, it's generally safe to assume it actually came out last year

as for the meaning of #86 on sean gramophone's list, from the ever-useful YouTube comments:

El Comentarista:
Please can someone tell me what it means "Ngongingo "?

Salama Salum:
@el comebtarista Ngongingo mean small ass and wowowo mean big ass according to this song!!

an independent earlier source confirms the second part:

Wowowo – Pronounced “whoawhoawhoa”, it’s Kiswahili for “Big butt.”

(I guess there were some clues in both the artwork and video!)

guys, Infinity - banging softness / male duo / Nigerian fashion / put it in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu69SyqwPGg
and the EP on the albums poll

hahaha amazing, thank you bc!!

so otm, if I actually find a song that hasn't already been posted here, it's generally safe to assume it actually came out last year

― loose Orwellian mobs (rob), Monday, December 14, 2020 8:52 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha, and then of course it's breastcrawl who comes and points it out to you, and you can feel he's giving you the eye and you should get disciplined asap.

or kindly reminding you that you must have been distracted because the song has already been posted and is right here in the spotify playlist at number 242

breastcrawl: maybe "Gunnery Sergeant Starboy" ?

thanx, but I’ve decided to go with “That’s What Search Functions Are For”

just came across this "Infinity" write-up in Rolling Stone:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/olamide-omah-lay-infinity-video-1085971/

it namecheks producer P.Priime, the third guy in the video. check that brilliant shot at 2'40, coinciding with his tag.

*namechecks

bizarre news from Uganda:

https://thenativemag.com/communities/omah-lay-tems-police-custody-uganda/

After watching the "Infinity" video last night, I woke up with the song in my head, so good call there friends

One small complaint though: it's actually Olamide who's the weak link for me. I love him on other songs (cf. "Green Light"), but all I want to hear is Omah on that one.

uganda seems like a powder keg right now. glad to hear bobi wine is out of prison.

also out of Ugandan prison: Omah Lay and Tems. Both presidential candidate for the opposition Bobi Wine and his rival Bebe Cool, son a former Museveni cabinet minister, are claiming a role in their release - Bebe Cool after allegedly calling the police on them in the first placce.

anyway, there's a video for "Godly" (sugar, no creme lol):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqUd72pK15Y

I think Kabza De Small would have a fair shot at top 77 if there was a single consensus track or album but the problem is he releases too much good music.

here's some consensus for you:

🎹🎹PİANO! PİANO!🎹🎹 - a song appreciation thread for ”eMcimbini” by Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa ft. Aymos, Samthing Soweto, Mas Musiq & Myztro

Hey that's good. I'll be doing my part to get it on the countdown.

brilliant track to (perhaps?) close off this year, which in Nigeria was dominated by the #endSARS protests as much as by the pandemic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3BxmBQDfhQ
Ajebo Hustlers ft. Davido • Barawo (Remix)

(produced by... 1da Banton! - see Nabozo’s post one month upthread)

thanks to this thread for providing much of my fave music of the year btw!

a pleasure, as always

I'm only just getting around to the Amaarae album today, and it's so good! I was worried her voice was too wispy to sustain interest across a whole album, but I was very wrong.

Thanks for making up the playlists for the nominated stuff as always breastcrawl and everyone for all the songs this year, I’ve been too damn busy this past year and need to catch up. Sounds like a tonne of great shit came out.

thanx kruezer! let me put said playlists up here as well. the afropop one includes the amaarae album, which, rob is right, is indeed very good.

(copied from the 2020 EOY Voting & Campaigning thread:)

Just like last year, I made two Spotify playlists for all the (*very* broadly defined) African “pop” that has been nominated:

one for all the South African stuff: first the 47/48 nominated tracks and after that the 16 albums that were nominated (I counted the Keleketla! album Nabozo is championing as South African), 273 tracks in total, a lot more than last year. that’s 25 hours of music to get lost in: lots of amapiano, some Limpopo house, a bit of gqom and of course several representatives of the House of Sun-El.

link: ILM 2020 EOY🇿🇦SOUTH AFRICAN NOMS

...and one for all the non-SA African stuff, 62 tracks and 18 albums, 279 tracks in total, similar to last year.
I stretched “pop” to include Nyege Nyege, Tony Allen & Masekela (counted this one towards the non-SA side) and “African” to include Afro-Portuguese (by way of the UK and France) batida-makers DJ Danifox and Nídia. Oh, and Moroccan-French band Bab L’Bluz is there as well, because I like ‘em.

link: ILM 2020 EOY🔷AFROPOP NOMS

Please let me know if you think I forgot or overlooked something!

I went ahead and created a new thread for afrobeats / afro-pop btw
Rolling Afrobeats 2021

I guess someone can come up with a fancy title for a South African thread (rolling amaKhosi nezIndlovukazi yAmapiano, gqom, house neKwaito 2021)

not sure we need a Rolling South African thread. we have plenty of active and ongoing SA-themed threads as is.
what do others think?

I'd like to be less of a bystander re: afro-pop this year, but that's more likely to happen on a Nigeria/Ghana thread than a SA one so I defer to the experts here. FWIW I like the Sun-Et Al. thread, it feels very classic ilm, so I def wouldn't want to pre-empt that one

i think a rolling south african thread to collect everything might be good actually, it's a little awkward at the moment with everything split over about three different threads, and it's helpful to delineate the new year too

we can make threads for any particular albums that deserve more attention of course but having a single rolling thread to collect everything else would be my preference

it would also make it much easier to keep up with things which is the biggest benefit

I think it made sense in 2019-20 to have individual threads with the guys driving the new sound, but now as it grows organically it does feel complicated to assign a logic to each thread.
Things are working rather well on the afro-pop front with the rolling thread + individual threads for main artists - albums that are big events - occasional polls

I agree that there’s a strong case for a Rolling SA thread, even if like rob I’m very partial to the Sun-El thread. it’s definitely true that the logic behind those threads is getting increasingly difficult to maintain. a Kabza-produced Samthing Soweto amapiano release could go on all of the current three main ones, for example.

If it’s alright with you folx I will make that Rolling thread and try to wrap up the other ones to some extent. Don’t think I will go for anything fancy as a title tho, wouldn’t want to create any new confusion!

more likely to happen on a Nigeria/Ghana thread

oh for sure, was just alluding to my own biases there. That said, I watched a Baloji-directed short on the Criterion Channel the other night (Zombies, highly recommended) that made me want to check out the Congolese scene.

I endorse the rolling SA plan.

If anyone has moderating powers I'm happy to have Afro-Pop added to the title, which I also slightly prefer as a catch-all, although imo afrobeats is still okay as a term despite the slight controversy it has attracted, it's known by listeners by now and it's also what we post :)

If anyone has moderating powers I'm happy to have Afro-Pop added to the title, which I also slightly prefer as a catch-all, although imo afrobeats is still okay as a term despite the slight controversy it has attracted, it's known by listeners by now and it's also what we post :)

let me ask a moderator

yeah sure, but it appears a little arbitrary to me to consider that afro-pop is acceptable as an umbrella term for bongo flava but that afrobeats is not, especially if we accept that the term is now international and, correct me if I'm wrong, still in use.
I'm no expert in the genre, but there used to be a plurality of terms (Azonto etc) corresponding to the different styles and dances even in NIG-GHA, so I always thought of afrobeats as an umbrella.
The fact that the Tanzanians so easily collaborate with the Congolese for example also muddles waters and would almost make you wonder about having other umbrella terms
Anyway, I don't mean to be argumentative here, just saying it's hard to cut clear and reconcile all views (international, African, national etc).

still in use *in Africa (and West Africa most relevantly).

like I said, we’ve done this before, but “afrobeats” has been controversial from the start, as a term coined in the UK a decade ago for the burgeoning new pop scene in Ghana and Nigeria, with a play on “afrobeat” (because Fela Kuti cs was the only reference people had in the UK), that had no currency in those countries themselves - and still isn’t universally accepted there (Burna Boy insisting on “afro-fusion”, Adekunle Gold naming his album “Afro Pop”). it was never meant to include the pop music of other African countries (where the Fela Kuti connection would make even less sense to begin with). It’s unfortunate that the term has caught on in the US music press as well, but it doesn’t mean we have to toe the line. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t think of describing Sun-El’s music as “afrobeats”, and yet that is the trend as it is internationally.

“Afropop” or “African pop” are simply much more neutral as descriptive terms. the only problem you run into is where to draw the line for what constitutes “pop music”, but that’s a general debate that has nothing to do with *African* music specifically.

our two new Rolling threads for 2021:

Rolling Afropop / Afrobeats 2021

MZANSI MUZIQ 2021 🇿🇦 Rolling South Africa thread