Popular music in Africa

1 Dec 2018 - 00:00

Popular music in Africa has been making a big noise around the world for a number of years now, and Africa's pop musicians have not only proven that they can hold their own among the world's best in terms of creativity but also in terms of original marketing strategies that help grow their brands in an extremely challenging market.

Nigerian popstar Tiwa Savage.

Indeed, Africa's music market is arguably the most difficult to navigate in the world. This is due to rampant piracy and fans' limited purchasing power, among many other structural challenges. Nonetheless, African pop musicians have come up with innovative ways to turn a big profit and stay in the limelight for many years.

Some even use piracy to their advantage by allowing their music to be distributed freely in return for fame and ticket sales. Whether this strategy is a good one is debatable. The point is that African musicians know how to be resilient when the odds seem to be against them.

We're also seeing big-name artists in the West turning to African popstars for collaborative projects. This is no doubt due to their originality, which is far-reaching: every pop scene in each African country has its own distinctive sound, which is owed to influences from local languages and traditional music. This attribute of country-specific pop idiosyncrasies has been largely lost by the West, where artists sing mostly in English and ultimately end up sounding the same regardless of their cultural roots.

It is with this diversity in mind that we have chosen Popular Music in Africa as the theme for the month of December. We commission and publish Overview texts that provide valuable insight into the key popular genres across the continent. We will be updating this page as the month of December progresses, so make sure you check in every day to find links to the latest published articles.

Overviews