In March 2024, Wizkid stirred the hornet’s nest with a series of Instagram Stories in which he called out the perceived mislabelling of all African music as Afrobeats. A little over a month later, while speaking on Amazon Music’s ‘B and N’ Podcast, Fireboy joined the fray, stating that he didn’t intentionally create Afrobeats music, doubling down on comments from February about Afrobeats lacking pure soul and lyricism. The ensuing conversation couldn’t have been any more as expected if Nostradamus himself predicted the outcome. Enthusiasts waged war across the digital realm for days, debating whose interpretation of this legitimate concern about Afrobeats’ image was most correct. And that wasn’t to be the last of such conversations involving Nigerian pop artists.
On 31 August, 2026, a clip from veteran radio host Old Man Ebro’s Hot 97 ‘Ebro in the Morning’ show, with singer Tems, surfaced, reigniting conversations around nomenclature. The interview itself took place on 26 October 2023, as part of media rounds preceding the Born in The Wild album, but netizens hardly cleared. For most, the sentiments shared in the clip, including Tems’ statements about making Alternative, Afrosoul, and R&B music, rather than Afrobeats, the media’s tendency to label everything out of Nigeria as Afrobeats, and the assertion that the situation would ‘shake out’ over time, were met with mixed reactions. It appears that there still isn’t a consensus on the subject of nomenclature—rightly so, since music is dynamic—but it also raised questions about branding in a ‘post-Afrobeats’ era as culture journalist Ayomide Tayo recently described the current state of the industry.
For a broader conversation about what the approach to nomenclature and genre-naming should be for artists looking to break into other markets, and the present mainstream narrative, Culture Custodian spoke to some of Nigeria’s active culture journalists to better understand the state of things. Read on.
Chibuzo Emmanuel, Freelance Culture Writer (Dazed, Guardian UK, etc)
A huge part of the problem—and it’s a major problem—is that in the early 2010s, when what we call afrobeats began to cross into international markets, stakeholders focused on everything but how to brand or classify the panoply of sounds they were heralding. It didn’t help that Nigerian media didn’t take any interest in fulfilling this role. Nonetheless, all of this is water under the bridge.
I think artists from this part of the world should generally understand Afrobeats less as a genre in the traditional sense and more as a branding umbrella of a cultural marker. Because that’s what it really is, it’s never really been a genre in the conventional sense. I understand why artists who don’t fit within the classic definition of Afrobeats tend to feel indignant. The reality, however, is that the tag is helpful for introducing them into foreign markets. A lot of them would get lost if they were marketed purely as the genre that best represents them.
The solution for me is to interpret “Afrobeats” as a branding umbrella without losing sight of the actual genres that best represent one’s music. These days on streaming platforms, it is possible to classify music under multiple genres. (i.e afrobeats/ soul). So, it’s no longer as restrictive as in the past.
Abioye Damilare, Afrocritik and The Nollywood Reporter
Tems, to me, was protecting her lane. She’s R&B first, always has been since her early days, and the industry’s reflex to stamp “Afrobeats” on anything African is lazy and limiting. For artistes who aren’t pure Afro-pop, they should stop waiting to be correctly labelled. They have to ensure they state their genre clearly, target the right playlists and rooms. I saw Llona correcting people on the “Afro-depression” tag the other day, and I think that’s really on point.
The global doors are already open, unlike when it was still the “Afrobeats to the world” time when the tag was used to transport African Pop Music to a certain cache. Also, mainstream media, labels, and in fact, journalists/critics need to catch up. More precision in branding will help everyone travel, rather than just slapping ‘Afrobeats’ on everything.
Emmanuel ‘Waziri’ Okoro, Managing Editor, Afrocritik
Tems was not rejecting Afrobeats. She was rejecting the flattening of music into one marketable genre label. Her point carries historical weight and merit because her work has long sat closer to Alternative R&B, Soul, and Alté than conventional Afropop, even though some of her records have incorporated Afrobeats/Afropop.
For artists who are not fundamentally Afro-Pop leaning, the play should be to name the music for what it actually is. If an artist makes R&B, say R&B. If it is Soul, Alternative, Jazz, Hip-Hop, or a genuine fusion of several forms, let that be the language around the music. Don’t let the market define your sound before you define it yourself.
Then again, there is little value in constantly inventing increasingly elaborate “Afro-” prefixes (side eyes Yoru-Pop merchants) simply to make music legible to the global market. That can create the very confusion artists are trying to escape.
Afrobeats has been enormously useful as an umbrella term, but that same usefulness has become a limitation. It has begun to cover the individuality of artists underneath it. Wizkid complained about this after “Made in Lagos” was released. And this is where the mainstream needs to do more. It needs to stop treating African music and Afrobeats as synonyms. They are not.
A Nigerian R&B singer does not suddenly become an Afrobeats artist because they are Nigerian. A Ghanaian Soul singer does not become Afrobeats because their song has a West African rhythm. Streaming platforms, music journalists, and award bodies have a huge role here, too. They need to become more sophisticated in their understanding of genres. Awards, in particular, should not create categories that effectively force a continent’s entire music industry into one box. If the music is R&B, it should be allowed to compete and be marketed within R&B while its African identity remains part of the artist’s story.
Afrobeats can remain one of Africa’s most important exports without becoming the mandatory prefix for every artist coming out of the continent.
Shalom Tewobola, Pulse
It’s interesting because I saw a few people dragging her, saying she has benefited from the globalization of Afrobeats. Tems does not have many fans in Nigeria, if anything, she’s within the foreign space. Operating from the inside out rather than the usual from the outside in. She was literally nominated for Best Female R&B pop artist at the BET awards, sharing spaces with SZA and Olivia Dean. Tems is a global superstar and has transcended the Nigerian industry.
I don’t know that she represents the post-Afrobeats era inherently, because I don’t think she was ever part of this era but I also agree that the Afrobeats era is fast fading away. Even The Headies know this, as evidenced by their inclusion of several UG artists this year. I think artists should keep experimenting with sounds, particularly sounds that directly relate to their cultural identity. With the emergence of AI, everybody is chasing the high of authenticity, and I know that word is used anyhow, but it’s the truth.
I do think we are currently in a post-Afrobeats world. It seems like more artists are trying to differentiate themselves and break out of the norm. But globally, they still respect Nigerian music as Afrobeats, and I don’t know that that is going to change; eventually, yes, but right now, not yet.
These people who have broken out want to create something that is different. Artists in Nigeria are still quite comfortable with Afrobeats and Afropop because they are the mainstream popular music that people are listening to. And it’s easier to go viral from there than to do something out of being almost obsolete. Because if they aren’t artists like Burna, Wizkid, or Tems, nobody will care. Even Yorupop or Afro-Adura are just subgenres of Afropop. So, if, say, Solana goes viral and she blows up in the following years, she does stand a chance of creating something different from Nigerian popular music. But that’s yet to be seen.
I think everybody is still going to keep creating their music, and while it seems that we name emerging sounds too quickly, I think it’s just an attempt to be different. But inherently we are still under the same terms and the only people who can really change things are the popular mainstream artists.
Tomide Marv, Zikoko
I do not think Tems said anything that threw Afrobeats, Afropop, or Nigerian music under the bus. She’s just saying people tend to call the music from Africa, Afrobeats. It’s a broad term, but it doesn’t really represent where she’s coming from.
She’s R&B in a way. In fact, for me, I’d say neo-R&B, and this is a personal opinion. She’s not wrong for saying she’s not an Afrobeats artist. The thing is, if she makes an R&B record the way an American would make an R&B record, people are going to call her fake. Or call her a clone. There’s interpretation to music. She makes R&B, but she interprets her R&B the way a Nigerian would make it. There’s groove to it, but the R&B is in the writing, vocals, delivery, and her sway around the African groove.
Generally, there needs to be music education. It’s something the artists, audience, and even people working in music need to be educated about. Some of the people working in music aren’t as educated as they should be. Artists are usually the ones who get educated by the people working in music. Hollywood might sell us the notion that your favourite artists are readers. True, but maybe not so much anymore. Now, many people want a unique identity, as seen in an article I wrote recently. That’s why it is hard for us to say people should stick to a certain name for a genre of music. Even if you call it what it is, the artist will come out tomorrow saying, this is ‘emo-pop,’ ‘emo-Yahoo,’ or whatever. Everyone wants to have an identity that travels with them.
We should dissolve the term ‘Afrobeats’ and call it what it actually is, ‘Afropop.’ Pop music with an African twist. The same way we have ‘hiplife’ from ‘Highlife.’ We can add suffixes and whatnot, but at the end of the day, what has no addition shouldn’t be included. People need to understand what it takes to create a music genre and for its impact to be accepted. Even we in the media interchange and use these terms depending on context, and we need to come to agree that this is what it is: Afrobeats as a culture, agreed. Afrobeats as a genre, we have to rethink.
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