Rolling Afropop 2023

Oh I meant Asake wrt victory lap. I don't know anything about 2Point1

lovely Ruger trifle with DJ Neptune - this is “Bienvenue”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lN1W3Y_Qv4

“Stimela” is a big banging Decemberrrr favourite, I approve

"yoga" is great, nice to hear him slow it down a little bit

Shock in South African news as rapper AKA was shot dead outside a restaurant in Durban yesterday night. He was 35.
He dies a year after my friend who introduced me to him with one of his favorite songs, Fela in Versace. They now share very similar dates of birth and death. Destiny really botches things up. Shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1CRoYZeD0Q
AKA - Fela in Versace

Beauty Dlulane, who heads a parliamentary committee on arts and culture, condemned AKA's murder, describing it as a "hit". She called on authorities "to protect South Africans from this new scourge of what seems to be contract and revenge killings where performing artists and DJs seem to be targeted".

this is chilling, especially coming less than three months after the assassination of DJ Sumbody, also when he was on his way to a celebration

In more uplifting news, veteran soca star Machel Montano is doing a Friday February 17 carnival show in Trinidad with Wizkid, Rema, Ayra Starr, and a bunch of soca acts and others

Doglatin: Great mix! Loved most of these songs already and several I’m listening for the first time.

Anyone longing for the old days of afrobeats can hear Ayra Starr's take on it. Which has Awilo Longomba haunting in the background. It's good. But yeah, give us an album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLucolSS-Wo
Ayra Starr - Sability

Thanks so much Moka! Yeah a lot of the selections are fairly obvious but I just wanted to stick to my tried and true faves from the last couple of years or so. Glad you enjoyed it!

I'd love to hear Rema on the remix of Sability.

Sability is cool. I feel like I don't have much of a sense of Ayra Starr as an artist yet though (poss my problem not hers).

I like this barely-there Zinoleesky track "YanYanYan" that runs on charisma fumes (I had no idea what he looked like until this video...I'm straight but wau) and threatens to turn into a v good ama song in the final seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMChLgtZ1J8

rob is in love!!! that’s so cute!
I agree that Zino definitely has a way about him

lol, I don't want to get weird here, but that is one striking looking human feline hybrid being

No homo please, this is not the Beatles thread damnit !
JK, it's not weird rob, I have the hots for Omah Lay myself.

Coming back to AKA because there's a scandalous backstory.
First, I normally never watch something that graphic, but I was shown the video. It must be from the surveillance camera of the restaurant from which AKA is seen leaving with his friends. It's very clear how it happens. A guy on the pavement signals to the killer that the group is coming. The killer takes his relaxed time to cross the road (busy traffic), circles around to avoid suspicion. AKA and his friends are still hugging and saying goodbye when he dashes and shoot AKA at close range, before re-crossing the road and disappearing into the night in a matter of seconds. We looked at each other with my partner and agreed this guy must have killed a lot of people.
Now, if the killing is dramatic in itself, what about the backstory ? Suspicion immediately fell on the family of the ex-girlfriend, young model Anele Tembe who it's rumoured AKA pushed off the balcony of a hotel room two years ago. In a letter that has resurfaced from June last year, the family and their lawyers are pressing the national public prosecutor to press charges against AKA. They were denied, and the official story is that she committed suicide. The family makes its position very clear that they are convinced it was murder, and it's known that South Africa justice system is corrupt. AKA leaves a young daughter behind, not from the model, but from DJ Zinhle.

xp

similarly it's not a secret I'm hopelessly devoted to Oxlade's striking sounding vocal instrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz8sJBDSzvM
Michael Brun ft. Oxlade • Clueless

JayO - 22 ... from the UK but feels as of a piece w/ afrobeats influenced R&B as anything else... his last single was also remixed by victony. this had been going on viral on tiktok for at least a month before coming out yesterday so it may end up being a hit, we'll see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwyKHN-znrA

went back to the tyla song... pretty forgettable sadly. for some reason they're having trouble cracking the code w/ her? feels like they're trying to push her into a more westernized idea of dance/R&B but it ends up just feeling generic in a tinashe sorta way. i'm still holding out hope nonetheless

This girl always bangs so hard. Limpopo strikes again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3lDyGoqVU
Sho Madjozi - Chale

Chale owns me.

Chale sounds massive. Video doesn’t quite fit the vine of the song though.

Rick Ross amapiano jams is all I ever wanted

someone posted this clip in the comments to a Naira Marley tweet - intriguing, to say the least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjF-u6Ht870

the actual recording of it, perhaps surprisingly, slams pretty hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaESxBnYaI
Yomisings ft. Topskidometer • Bestie isonu

Wow, I think Chale is my first great song of 2023. The bouncy synth-lines make it sound like a mix of amapiano and ratchet, and that's basically the best thing in the world right now.

LOVING Chale and the Yomisings song

I'm not quite sure where this falls in terms of genre, but gosh I love these sweeter-than-life South African ballads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID57psUzWO0
Lizwi Wokuqala - Umbuzo

Not exactly Afropop 23 but am enjoying Instagram Live of Washington DC go-go band doing Wizkid & Tems's "Essence"

I miss Davido, been playing a lot of his stuff recently. he hinted at a March comeback back in December, but we’ll see how it goes. I just hope he’s alright.

Libianca - People ft. Ayra Starr and Omah Lay

Well of course a song with that refrain is going to have Omah Lay on the remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sivims7tSH4

Another shocker in South Africa as this time it's 28 year old Costa Titch (rapper, Amapiano) who has died on stage in Johannesburg after a seizure. They couldn't revive him. I don't think there are details as to cause of death yet.

No... For crap's sake. RIP Costa Titch - a true talent

new davido album next friday ... i think i'm one of the few here who liked both of his last albums

There is a time for everything. A time to Grieve and a time to Heal.
A time to Laugh and a time to Dance. A time to Speak & A time for Silence.

Thank you to everyone out there for your love and that has held me down.

My next album TIMELESS is here, March 31st. Preorder in bio💚 pic.twitter.com/XLXNAJl4XL

— Davido (@davido) March 21, 2023

very happy for this! I like both albums too.

as I noted a few posts upthread I found myself really missing his presence within Naijapop

Burna Boy + J Balvin - rOllercoaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVVGW-5ITw

as can be gleaned from that video, the Davido package will, to the surprise of no one, include at least one Magicsticks-produced banger

meanwhile, this a remix for the US market I can get behind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agjgfxKIIgM
Victony ft. Don Toliver & Rema (& Tempoe) • Soweto (Remix)

log drum (lock drum?) bonanza:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMHxgrvdPMQ
Nonso Amadi ft. Zinoleesky • Lock Up
(co-produced by P.Priime)

If you, like me, enjoy sensory overloaded Coupé Decalé then this one is for you

Dydy Yeman - Koko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2jjSf2T2kc

My haphazard explorations of Maskandi and Afro Soul and Amapiano and thereabouts have taken me into various other corners I didn't know about, and my latest fascination is with Tsa Manyalo, which is Limpopo wedding/party music. There's not quite enough of just that on Spotify to reach our genre thresholds, so I widened the scope out a little to "Sepedi Pop", but the extra variety does the experience no harm!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BW3cqDHqYSqC0B1a8xQcV?si=1bf0468876524f9b

ooh nice

ooh "koko" is real fun

It's mad as a box of frogs and I love it

Enjoying glenn's playlist too

I have nothing much else to contribute to this thread ATM other than I'm convinced coupe decale is quite the thing

I love this lowkey, as the man puts it, bordering on melancholy but also def horny track from Olamide & Ckay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcjOlcWaaU8

Trumpet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fhtbd5NxW0
Buju, Kiss Daniel & Seyi Vibez - Gwagwalada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM8ULpYAX8M
Falz & Vector - Yakubu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjCg3jFLBuw
Gyakie & JBEE - Scar

And special for rob:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdo1E-qsCoQ
Zinoleesky - Many Things

Nothing that really lifts me off my feet here I must say

I don't know how my esteemed colleagues feel about them, but there's a bunch of new naijapiano songs (Asake's 2:30, Joeboy's Body & Soul, Young Jonn's Aquafina) that sound rather messy.

And special for rob

lol, but I agree it's not that remarkable -- I guess the thrill is gone

fyi the current Zinoleesky banger is party No Dey Stop with Adekunle Gold:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnXq06m9P4g

Jonz with last year #1 boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsEjqV7kZdM
Ruger - Jonzing Boy

He also has a more upbeat (though maybe less personal) single out called Bun Bun with Jugglerz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n22O3NR1yRI
Ruger & Jugglerz - Bun Bun

and I guess Shu-Peru is the song of the moment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1NPXKoTGy0
Kizz Daniel - Shu-Peru

me too, i always have the same reaction! thank you for posting these.

Couple other things that caught my ear from Senegalese charts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBMfY0z5M8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKboYK87ROg

ooh "ni la deh" is lovely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9e3AogOOz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5RChlIETwA

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

i really love "surprise"

Tangal might be the first one I'm really connecting to. But yeah striking how their style is at the crossroads of so many things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hALNVDRN4_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmioOXClM2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg81-Iv_guU

ok that's exhausted my youtube digging of the last few days

Really feeling the 3-Step stuff today

Wow, that list of Senegalese music kinda just got better and better. Might vote for Tégguil sa Tank when EOY listmaking begins.

If dog latin or anyone else wants to do a posting spree of 3-step videos it would be must appreciated. What little I've heard, I've liked.

Also, new Teni album out last month, for the people who enjoyed Wondaland! It's not as good, unfortunately :(

Narah Diouf I see was mentioned last year for a track , and I like that 2023 track “Teguil sa Tank” with Bilou XIV also.

https://sondela-recordings.bandcamp.com/album/rising-strong

I have no idea what to call this, it's afrohouse and Thakzin is involved.

Honestly, there's a lot more going on here, kind of big room-ish electrohouse? But it doesn't suck?

Also it's weird to see the old UK Funky people involved in this, Dubplate Malice releases afrohouse on his label and Perempay and Davinche just released something on Sondela a couple months ago.

Asake and Amaare made Fader best 2023 albums list

last month's cruel santino ep is wonderful, especially "ftr" which combines mbalax drums (finally that sound is moving beyond senegal/gambia!) with rage synths which is an incredible combo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGhEzL3e72o

Oooh, new Cruel Santino music! Thanks :)

Flavour's Big Baller is a banger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf40zo26TIE

Tyla “water” was 17th on the Uproxx music critic poll for songs.

Amaarae 14th on Uproxx critics poll for albums

I just wanted to do a final post to acknowledge the death of Zahara on 11 December 2023. She died from liver failure age 36 after years of battle with alcoholism. She was a Xhosa girl from a village outside of East London who made it big. Life and music labels didn't treat her too well, but her voice shined powerfully. Maybe those stories make me emotional, but I have to repress tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1CMWnxfFys
Zahara - Ndiza

And one more for the road

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEV_4xBrMJU
DJ SBu feat. Zahara - Lengoma

Someone should start an Afropop 2024 thread please.

Done

Rolling afropop 2024