We’re officially at the middle of the year (technically, we’re a smidge past the halfway mark), which is another way of saying we’re at yet another milestone from which we can retrospectively consider the year so far, taking stock of our achievements and lapses—everything from new year resolutions (for those who subscribe to this ritual), to spontaneous goals set along the course of the year. It’s also that time when music connoisseurs and enthusiasts take stock and constructively wrangle over the state of the music scene. Put differently: it’s that time when artists and their creations get served their scorecards.
In all honesty, lists and rankings, for all their potential for stirring excitement and debate, are mostly an effort at vanity. After all, how can one possibly rank art, which by definition is both ineffable and subjective? A counterargument, one posited by critics such as Wesley Morris provides us with a more sanguine perspective: lists, just like awards are essentially about reflecting the tastes of relevant cultural institutions and canonizing moments in culture. A. O. Scott, in his book Better Living Through Criticism, makes an even more poignant point. Good criticism, he argues, can be a bulwark against the suffocating consumerist culture of our times.
This imperative takes on increased urgency in the current Afrobeats milieu. Last year marked a crucial moment for the genre. 2024 was the year when Afrobeats’ stakeholders, having extractively harnessed Amapiano to the point of hyper-saturation, began searching for new sonic frontiers. Despite a few glints of individual brilliance from acts like Rema—who with his darkly piquant sophomore album Heis heralded a bracingly subversive vision of the soundscape—and Llona whose brilliant debut album Homeless tested the limits of the pensive style of Afrobeats—Afro-depression—heralded by artists like Omah Lay, the scene, for the most part looked frighteningly pallid. Wizkid’s late-hour Morayo would later foment some excitement, treating fans to a balanced fare of his myriad styles, but even that would hardly suffice in jolting the scene back to health.
It’s against this backdrop that this list was curated. In essence, if last year was an existential fork in the road for the genre, this list answers the question of how last year’s pivot is panning out. The songs on this list are selected from across the sweep of the genre. Only songs released between January and June this year were considered. For the sake of variety, we made the painful decision to allow just a single entry per artist. And while, of course, all curations, lists especially, are refracted against the personal biases and tastes of their curators, great pains were taken to ensure a significant degree of objectivity. As such, metrics like cultural impact, inventiveness, and artistic expression were taken into consideration in the curation of this list.
- J Hus & Asake, Gold
“Everything I’m wearing is gold, they’re calling me Gaddafi,” J Hus offers in the chorus of Gold. What’s perhaps most fascinating about this line is the bravura with which it manages to conflate opulence and hyper-masculine pomp into a holistic, beguiling offering. These two themes—a kind of swashbuckling, mercurial, perhaps noxious masculinity coupled with obscene opulence—animate the song. The beat, composed of gorgeous, syncopated drums and staccato melodies—is similarly imperious but not so much that it upstages J Hus & Asake who very skillfully baste the beautiful production with clever one-liners and slick melodies.
- Bloody Civilian, Ladida
The singer and producer Bloody Civilian is best known for her iconoclastic flair. In her debut EP Anger Management is a song entitled How To Kill A Man, in which she paints a graphic picture of murdering “someone’s son,” going over, with painstaking precision, the process of maiming her victim. Taken literally, it can be read as a fantasy in which she exacts revenge against a faltering lover. The figurative interpretations are however more complex, running the gamut from a satire on femicide to an inquiry into the mechanics of violence. Ladida, however, finds the artist uncharacteristically unburdened with complexity. Instead, she offers a syrupy fantasia that plays on the trope of one’s lover being their heartbeat. It’s upbeat, poppy, and infectious: the perfect soundtrack to a risqué night.
- Shallipopi, Laho
To the extent that Afrobeats has scored a crossover song this year, Laho is that song. Starting inconspicuously as a viral snippet on TikTok, the song has become one of the soundtracks of the year. For all its commercial success, however, the song is compositionally confounding. It’s meandering and almost structurally formless, composed of a sparsely populated, laconic beat, lyrics that could comfortably fit within a selection of nursery rhymes were it not for the invocation of adult language, and a hook that’s faintly distinct from the rest of the song. But it’s precisely this laissez-faire quality that has made Laho so resonant. In a zeitgeist that’s increasingly barreling towards complexity in pursuit of uniqueness, Laho’s insouciance lends it an infectious appeal. It also helps that the song is replete with simple sing-along lyrics. Hearing him blithely sing “Desperado, many many/ My amigo Balotelli/ Ladies taking me photo, paparazzi,” is certain to leave you defenseless, lulling you into singing along.
- Obongjayar, Holy Mountain
In Paradise Island, Obongjayar’s latest album, in which Holy Mountain is situated, the artist alternates between fits of manic agitation and periods of zen-like placidity as he wades through a scalding heartbreak. Holy Mountain finds him in his placid register, offering a delicate and moving paean to his lover. The song unfurls breathtaking precision, opening with beautiful native drums and a guitar riff that hits the right spot in your soul. The lyrics are equally compelling. “I wasn’t looking but I found you/ You’re my holy mountain,” he sings. Across the song he blurs the boundary between love and faith, elevating his lover to divine status. There’s something so beautiful about this act: in his hands love ceases to be just a fleeting emotion, instead becoming an act of worship.
- Davido & Omah Lay, With You
That With You, the Tempoe-produced collaboration between Davido and Omah Lay, appears last on the former’s fifth studio album 5ive almost scans as an act of subversion; as though he decided to save the best for last. Davido naturally delights in upbeat soundscapes and this song proves no exception. His excitement is palpable as he sings “Sweet Fanta Diallo, I no fit forget you Ebezina, ebezina, nsogbu soggbu.” The lyrics are illegible but his sublime delivery somehow elevates his verse. Omah Lay in turn is characteristically brilliant, complementing Davido with more studied lyrics and his trademark sultry melodies.
- Asake, Why Love
Why Love, Asake’s only single this year, has a lore that is as compelling as the actual song. Arriving in the wake of Asake’s exit from YBNL and a sweeping reshuffling of his management team, the song initially attracted intense scrutiny. Every putative lapse of the song was picked at and championed as proof of his fall from grace. But Why Love, departing from Asake’s reputation for instantly spawning hits, slowly wormed its way into our collective consciousness and is now undoubtedly one of the most formidable records of the year. It’s a bit wonky at the edges, especially the second verse, which is at best middling. But the first verse, in which he offers a debonair perspective of romantic attraction, is immaculate. This is a running theme throughout the song: what it lacks in technical execution, it makes up for in swagger.
- Ayra Starr & Wizkid, Gimme Dat
Ayra Starr has, since her breakout in 2019, mastered the sort of ballads that exist in the interstice between love and heartbreak; music that feels like a sweet-savory dish. But in Gimme Dat, she enlists Wizkid for a syrupy romantic number. She’s still somewhat cautious, “If I give you my love, make you no disappoint,” she sings over the chorus, but overall, she’s more sanguine, more optimistic The effect on the listener is an intense longing for an adventure with a nascent romantic interest.
- Rema, Baby (Is it a Crime)
Baby, Rema’s first single of the year, was met with feverish excitement upon release; a reaction only fitting given that he started teasing it late last year, so much so that fans feared the song would never be released officially. Compared to the smoldering rage and iconoclasm he evinced on Heis, the record finds him in a mellow register, showering his love interest with sinuous melodies and beguiling lyrics that palpably evoke the sense of a freshly budding romance.
- Gabzy & Fireboy, So Much Sense
Picture this: it’s late at night and you’re cooped up in bed with your lover, wine glass in hand. The vibes are immaculate, except for the perfect song to burnish the mood. In this situation, Gabzy and Fireboy’s So Much Sense is the perfect track to cue up. If a single adjective could adequately describe the song, it’s tender. The melodies are supple and buttery, the lyrics are equally soft and yearning, finding the pair painting a vivid portrait of burning romance.
- Odeal, London Summers
London Summers, in a sense, is the diametric opposite of Odeal’s Lustropolis, his seven-track EP of last year, which finds him laboriously griping over an unsavory romantic situation. In contrast, London Summers presents a jaunty aspect to his personality, mirroring the bubbly air of his Sunday At Zuri’s EP. The beat is similarly cherry, providing the perfect base for him to lay lyrics about his obsession with his muse.
0 Comments
Add your own hot takes