In recent times, urban West African pop—aka Afrobeats—has gained huge appeal across and beyond the borders of the African continent, finding homes in both the African diaspora and foreigners with cultural ties to Africa and also entering and clinching hitherto rarefied spaces and awards. From 2Baba to Fuse ODG to Burna Boy to Rema, African artists have curated homegrown sounds that have resonated with the world and sparked the explosion of Afrobeats.

One of the major contributors to the growth of Afrobeats is streaming platforms. With the ease that technological advancements have created, commodities such as music have become easier to access and ensured that a song from an artist in Ghana or Nigeria or South Africa can reach a listener in London, New York, Paris or Tokyo. These streaming platforms, with their curated playlists and catalogue of songs, have taken African artists and their music straight into the homes of consumers.

 

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Spotify is one of those pivotal streaming platforms. Founded in 2006, Spotify entered the African market in 2018, first launching in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt before expanding into a 49-strong list of territories that includes South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Angola and Zimbabwe. In the same year, Spotify launched “Afro Hub” as part of its Global Cultures initiative, featuring a dedicated curatorial space for listeners to interact with Afrobeats via artist-helmed playlists and podcast, as part of the streaming giant’s plans to create a digital archive and resource for African music.

In celebration of the genre’s ascendant dominance, Spotify recently launched Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams, a dedicated infotainment website for everything surrounding the genre, from the past to the present. “There is no doubt that Afrobeats as a genre is here to stay, and will only continue to shatter more ceilings. In 2023 alone, the genre has been played for more than 223 million hours with streams exceeding 7.1 billion on Spotify,” revealed Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Spotify’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa. “We created this site for both new and longtime fans of the genre, who would like to have a better understanding of how and where this explosive sound came to be.”

Going through the website, here are four takeaways from Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams.

ACCESSIBLE INTERFACE

Although the website isn’t fully updated, it is organised in a way that makes the information quick to understand. On the homepage of the site, there’s a timeline carousel for the Afrobeats genre, relaying information about Kennis Music’s emergence in 1998, the birth of Mo’Hits Records in 2004 and DJ Abrantee launching his radio station in 2011, among others. 

The site also states its five pillars, which are Origins (the exploration of the origins of Afrobeats and the sounds that influenced it along the way), Evolution (Afrobeats’ evolution from its 90s sound to the current sound), Fusion (the different genres in Afrobeats as well as Afrobeats’ biggest collaborators), Cultural Export (a look at Afrobeats’ biggest moments on global stages) and Women of Afrobeats (exploration of key female figures and their contributions).

INSIDER INFORMATION

Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams provides data about the songs and artists in Afrobeats dominating the charts. This data, which will be updated on a biweekly basis, is based on Spotify’s user base and is intended to “share noteworthy findings and trends.” The data includes the Top 10 Afrobeats songs of all time, age group percentage listening to Afrobeats, top cities streaming Afrobeats and their most streamed songs, Top Female Afrobeats artists and Afrobeats emerging markets, among others.

There is also a curated selection of Afrobeats playlists and podcasts “that allow you to immerse yourself and develop a better understanding of the genre.”

A DOSE OF FUN

It’s not just serious stuff on the site. There are fun games planned in the form of quizzes and polls to test the audience’s knowledge about Afrobeats as well as deepen that knowledge in the process. There’s a quiz website visitors can go through, which reveals access to an exclusive Afrobeats playlist at the end. Visitors can also participate in a weekly poll, with questions being changed on a weekly basis, while a wordcloud activity rounds out the games tab.

A SIGN OF GOOD THINGS TO COME

This site portends good tidings for Afrobeats. By joining other stakeholders who are documenting the history and rise of the genre, Spotify is ensuring that there will be a great database of information for both Africans and foreigners to learn more about the genre, its roots, key players, accomplishments and future stars.

Visit ‘Afrobeats: Journey of a Billion Streams’ here.

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