the.com/afrobeat
jazz, funk, and Yoruba fury fused into songs too furious to fit on one side of vinyl
means A West African music genre blending jazz, funk, highlife, and Yoruba rhythms into long, politically charged grooves driven by horns and percussion.
from Coined and pioneered in Nigeria in the late 1960s and 1970s by Fela Kuti, who fused American funk and jazz with West African highlife and traditional Yoruba music. The name simply welds 'Afro-' (African) to 'beat' — a plain label for an unmistakable sound. Note it differs from 'Afrobeats' (with an 's'), the much later, separate pop genre.
- inventor
- Fela Kuti coined and weaponized the genre
- song length
- single tracks often ran past twenty minutes
- political weapon
- Fela's lyrics enraged Nigeria's military government
- not afrobeats
- the added s marks a different, newer genre
- drummer
- Tony Allen was its irreplaceable rhythmic engine
fela kuti — nigerian musician who created afrobeat in the 1960s, blending jazz, highlife, and west african rhythms
burna boy — contemporary nigerian artist whose 2019 album 'african giant' brought afrobeat to global mainstream audiences
wizkid — nigerian afrobeat artist whose 2016 song 'one dance' with drake became a global #1 hit