African musicians who impressed in 2018 – part 3

Central Africa

Maître Gims (DRC/France)

Singer Maître Gims adds to the list of Africa's artists who made an impression in 2018. In August, he released the 40-track album Ceinture noire, including bonus tracks featuring Lil Wayne and French Montana. The artists toured the album extensively and received millions of views and listens for the singles ‘Le Pire’ and ‘Oulala’. Maître Gims' music has mainly made a big splash in African Francophone countries and is one of the continent's highest-earning artists plying their trade in Europe.

Dadju (DRC/France)

Dadju, Maître Gims' younger brother, is also based in France. The singer’s Gentleman 2.0 album, released in November, was certified gold and also earned him the Francophone Revelation of the Year Award at the NRJ Music Awards in Paris. The 19-track album sold nearly 500 000 copies this year. Adding to his success are his videos, which are performing extremely well on YouTube, including ‘Bob Marley’, ‘Jaloux’, ‘Django’, ‘Mafuzzy Style’ and ‘Lioness’. Each video has more than 40 million YouTube views, with his March release ‘Bob Marley’ sitting on almost 130 million. Dadju was positioned at No 3 on Spotify's list of the top 20 most played artists in France this year. The sad news is that the 27 year old has announced plans to retire from music in the near future.

Mohombi (DRC/Sweden)

Swedish-Congolese singer Mohombi struck gold this year with his electro hit ‘Mr Loverman’. The video for the song was released in June and has amassed more than 9 million YouTube views to date. He's nominated in the Best African Artist category at the Daf Bama Music Awards in Hamburg, Germany, which should have taken place on 21 December but were postponed. He is a 2017 winner of an Big Apple Music Award in New York and featured on Pitbull's Grammy Award-winning album Dale in 2016.

North Africa

L'Algérino (Algeria)

France-based Algerian artist L'Algérino's ‘Va Bene’, the official soundtrack for the film Taxi 5, was released in March and has been played more than 217 million times on YouTube since then. L'Algérino was nominated in multiple categories at this year's All Africa Music Awards and ranks in 14th place on Spotify's top 20 most played artists in France for 2018.

DJ Kayz (Algeria)

The French DJ of Algerian origin did well with his ‘Jour J’ video featuring Wassila and Scridge. The video was released in March and has more than 93 YouTube views. His other video, ‘Trop Mimi’, featuring Ihab Amir & MR Géant was ranked in July at No 4 on Prurielle magazine's list of the top Moroccan songs.

Lartiste (Morocco)

Lartiste is a Moroccan-born French singer and rapper. He was nominated in the Best Male Northern Africa and Album of the Year categories at the 2018 AFRIMAs. On 12 December YouTube France ranked Lartiste’s video ‘Mafiosa’ featuring Caroliina among its most popular videos. The song was also featured on Spotify’s top-20 French list.