In 2020, Nigeria’s Afropop bore the trappings of a scene bristling with momentum- a scene at the cusp of permeating the global consciousness. Burna Boy released Twice as Tall to global acclaim, making history as the first winner of the newly-created Best Global Music Album category at the Grammys the next year. Wizkid’s Made in Lagos ushered a new dimension of international success to Afrobeats. Tiwa Savage’s Celia consolidated her already established legacy. Chike’s Boo of the Booless suffused the atmosphere with an air of swooning, poignant longing. Adekunle Gold’s Afropop Vol.1.—a dense oeuvre of ten delightfully heady songs—produced era-defining hits such as Something Different, AG Baby, and Okay. Omah Lay cemented himself by way of, not one but two, groundbreaking projects: Get Layd and What Have We Done.
The familiar cocktail of Afrobeats and Amapiano elements, which has defined the sonic atmosphere for four years now, was formed in 2020’s Crucible, through songs like Rema’s Woman, Rexxie and Mohbad’s KPK, and Phyno, Zinoleesky’s Kilofeshe and DJ Kaywise’s High Way. Davido’s third album A Better Time, while falling short of critical and commercial expectations, corralled a glamorous roster of global heavyweights, sparked conversations, and delivered local hits. Retrospectively, it might be a little difficult to paint a perfectly lucid mental portrait of the extent of the scene’s resplendence in 2020. However, rifling through the list of works released that year, carefully taking stock, is certain to evoke the air of magic, ingenuity, and wonderment that hung over the scene.
And so, when Wizkid’s Essence and Ckay’s Love Nwantiti rose to global acclaim the following year, it felt long overdue. Essence made history as the first song with a lead Nigerian act to make the Billboard Hot 100, the holy grail of Afrobeats at the time. And Love Nwantiti soared to never-before-seen heights, garnering streams in the hundreds of millions, and ferociously dominating global charts. 2022 was just as special. Fireboy was at the height of his powers, with Peru holding down home and abroad with the same degree of feverish intensity. Rema’s seminal debut Rave and Roses released that year. Tems’ joint effort with Future and Drake debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, placing her in a rarified contingent. But the jewel of the crown was Asake, whose rapid and bracingly mercurial surge to prominence remains unparalleled.
2023 was a rollercoaster ride that took many sharp, unexpected turns. It however had its moments. Burna Boy’s HipHop-inspired album I Told Them, which spawned two Billboard Hot 100 entries; Shallipopi’s theoretically energetic ascendency; OdumoduBlvck assuming the mantle of chief advocate for hyper-masculine pomp; Rema’s monster run with Calm Down.
This year has, however, for the most part, been lethargic, and soporific. Like an empty, barren field. Hits have been painfully scarce. Streaming numbers have been comparatively lower than in previous years. Years of chasing after quick viral hits optimized for social media have brought about a collective amnesia of the art of crafting songs with lyrical heft- songs that truly connect. Established acts, stripped of the couch of Amapiano, are struggling to match up to their previous standards, commercially and critically. What is left is the eviscerated husk of an industry which, only recently, seemed as though its eyes were set on the stars. The most telling sign of the fraught state of the industry is the conspicuous absence of newly minted stars this year.
Going back at least five years, the industry averaged five breakout stars every year. Rema, Fireboy, Joeboy, Zlatan, and Naira Marley in 2019. Omah Lay, Tems, Bella Shmurda, and Oxlade in 2020. Bnxn, Ayra Starr, Lojay, Ruger, Blaqbonez, Zinoleesky, and Ckay in 2021. Victony, Pheelz, Young Jonn, Seyi Vibez, and Asake in 2022. Odumodublvck and Shallipopi in 2023. Nobody in 2024. Zero. As to why this is problematic, if not catastrophic, the picture requires no further elaboration. What’s however pertinent, urgent, and crucial, is the conversation of how the industry slumped into this cesspool and what the clear path forward is.
When this conversation, of a dearth of breakout stars this year, comes up on social media, it’s not unusual to see a plurality of definitions of what a breakout star is. If an artist scores a lone hit and disappears afterward, do they count as a breakout star? How do successful niche artists fit within this conversation? How long does an incipient artist need to maintain a run of form before they can be considered to be established? There’s no singular definition for a breakout artist. However, there are telling signs. Breakout artists capture wide attention Crucially, this idea of “breaking out” is tied to a specific context. An artist might rise within a niche, a city, or a region, and within that space, they are recognized as a breakout figure. In the broader Afropop context, however, an artist lacking widespread recognition within the Afrobeats scene cannot be regarded as a breakout act. The focus here is on the larger Afrobeats framework, where success is measured by broader appeal, not just niche popularity.
Breakout acts also tend to have displayed a degree of consistency over time. So, multiple hit singles, collaborations, a solid fan base—generally, factors that allude to a potential for longevity and permanency in the scene. Phrases like “firmly established,” or words like “cemented,” typically used to describe breakout stars, underscore this point. Acts like Muyeez, Big Smur Lee (the artist behind Juju), more recently, Fido and Fola, have scored hits this year. However, they have yet to display the level of consistency and consolidation typical of breakout stars.
As with most complex problems, the lack of new stars this year is down to a multiplicity of factors. For Korede Ogundiya, a multimedia strategist, the increasing influx of foreign capital is in part to blame. “There has never been this much money in Afrobeats and I’m afraid that it’s a blessing and a curse.” While this capital has enabled artists to get the best out of their craft, it’s also enabling “foolish decisions.” One such foolish decision in his view is “empowering people with shallow knowledge of the music business.” Another gripe of his is the careless, desultory manner in which influencers are deployed during marketing efforts. “A bulk of the marketing budget now goes into feeding these people (influencers) on X and TikTok, who do little but propagate inflammatory narratives and stan wars.”
Another obvious reason is the quality of the music. “The music isn’t that great. The bar for being taken as a serious artist is at an all-time low, everyone wants to pay their way to the top” notes Derek Okorie, a producer, songwriter, and member of producer collective 44DB. “The current set of established acts were already spearheading their sound and individuality before it was cool to do so. That’s your selling point as an artist.” Ogundiya bears echoes of this sentiment. “Most of the songs that blew up this year did not get popular because they’re sonically pleasing or of good quality but because they cracked a particular formula or are optimized for platforms like TikTok.” Tolu Daniels, an A&R and one of Afrobeats’ foremost event hosts has slightly different insights into the situation. He thinks that Afrobeat’s new-found opulence is mostly being channeled to existing artists, as opposed to emerging artists at the cusp of a breakthrough. “I think the industry is still focused on servicing the breakout stars that we’ve had from previous years.”
These disparate opinions provide unique insights into the situation but they don’t, on their own, paint the full picture. The approach towards finding and breaking new artists has, in the past few years, changed dramatically. Where before talent scouts favored a boots-on-ground approach, scouring underground scenes and seeking information from seasoned A&Rs or discerning insiders, in pursuit of new talent. Today, the favored approach is a lot more hands-off and passive. Labels and talent scouts now favor internet sleuthing; keeping an eye out for trends on social media, most notably X and TikTok, patiently waiting for a spark of virality. Once an emerging act scores a viral moment on these platforms, a bidding war between these labels typically ensues.
While myopic, this trend stems from the grim reality that the music business has become increasingly risky and complex. The influence of television and radio—measured and tested avenues for breaking new acts for decades—has declined dramatically in the past couple of years. Social media has pulverized the concept of collective content consumption. In place of shows, music, and albums, that were served to everyone, more or less at the same time, today’s milieu provides tailor-made content curated by opaque algorithms. Ten years ago, everyone gleaned their music opinions from the same shows: MTV Base, Trace Music, and Soundcity. Today, our algorithm-curated feeds have siloed us into granular communities but also sharpened our sense of personal taste. The upside of this trend is that niche communities and interests have more of the spotlight. But this has however meant that it is now significantly more difficult to anticipate the tastes of a mass market or audience.
While this might on the surface seem to be a win—the decline of monocultural consumption and obversely, the rise of personalized content—this conversation is more nuanced. Collective media consumption provides shared cultural experiences, experiences that tether vast swathes of people and, in a sense, nod to the fundamental homogeneity of the human experience. It’s a surreal experience to witness individuals of different ethnicities, political leanings, and genders, unite, putting away their differences, to jointly revel in music—picture a symphony of thousands of voices amalgamating, melding, at a music concert. An ideal future would walk the tightrope between both possibilities: a world where niche and collective interests exist side by side.
This increasing shift toward personalized media experiences, on account of the ascendency of algorithmic feeds, as well as the current mammoth-sized costs of breaking new acts, have made the music business markedly riskier. This explains the decreased appetite for risk from labels and publishers. This passive, if not reactive attitude, has however fundamentally altered the ecosystem, opening up a groundswell of challenges. A reality many people constantly struggle to countenance, perhaps owing to the trappings of glamor, is that the life of a music star is incredibly difficult, rife with pressure and demands. The pressure to constantly evolve in lockstep with the times. The difficulty of weathering the attendant blizzards of criticism and balancing commercial expectations with artistic goals. As well as the physical toll of embarking on media runs and concert performances.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with signing an artist off a viral moment on TikTok. The issue, however, is that more often than not these artists have not yet passed through the process of artist development. And so, they are often unable to handle the long-term demands of stardom. What typically happens is that these artists fizzle out once the momentum of their viral song slows down. TikTok, and social media in general, isn’t set up to elevate artists but to boost individual songs. In the radio era, once an artist scored a hit, labels had a way of deploying airplay on radio and television to put the subsequent songs in front of listeners. Admittedly, they still couldn’t force listeners to like the songs, but repeat listening has a way of getting a listener to warm up to a record. Today it’s much harder, getting follow-up releases in front of the same people is next to impossible. Most listeners, who deploy viral songs in homemade videos for platforms like TikTok, have no idea who the artist behind the viral song is.
Outside of the fractured artist discovery process, there remains a spate of other problems. The scene has never been this saturated, the deluge of songs that come out every week is staggering. The implication of this is that it’s harder to stand out in today’s climate. It also doesn’t help that most nascent artists haven’t, yet, crafted a distinct sound. The prevalent strategy seems to be co-opting whatever the “hot sound” is, spamming the airwaves with releases, and hoping something will stick. However, the scarcity of institutions dedicated to artist development is perhaps the worst driver of this existential crisis. The responsibility of artist development should ideally fall to the label, but the reality in Nigeria is that most “labels” are a little more than a troupe of optimists looking to cash in on the spoils of the music industry.
So what does the way forward look like? It would entail artists, labels, and music executives returning to first principles, the basics. The definition of the Nigerian music market, according to the old industry joke, is one where marketing theories and common sense come to die. That is to say that the market, like the country it exists in, is immensely complex, and even seasoned veterans struggle, at times, to work the market. Notwithstanding, there are obvious solutions to this entrenched problem of breaking new artists. And it starts with understanding, or remembering, the age-old recipe for making a star. It starts with an artist with a distinct sound that the market needs. Here’s where the message often gets lost in translation, it’s not enough to be distinct, the artist’s sound needs to appeal to a wide audience. Some of the most prominent breakout acts in recent years have stuck, almost exclusively, to a single producer, just to maintain a distinct style. Asake with Magic Sticks, Ruger with Kukbeatz, Seyi Vibez with Dibs, and Odumodublvck with 44DB collective. This brings to focus just how imperative it is for a nascent act to have a tailored sound. The risk of ignoring this is being drowned out in a sea of noise.
The second ingredient is personality. And this doesn’t get enough emphasis in the Nigerian music industry. The prevailing school of thought today, in the industry, holds that personality and content, in this case, the music, are separate entities. The tacit implication of this dichotomy is that “personality” is typically treated as decorative, the superficial gloss on the actual music. This is false. Personality and content (in this case, the music) are indissoluble, two sides of a coin, especially in today’s environment. Odumodublvck is not widely revered just for his music, his personality plays an outsized role in how his music is received. The same goes for Rema, Ayra Starr, Shallipopi, and virtually every other breakout act in the past five years who has stuck. Music serves many functions, chief among which is the role of reflecting our values and fantasies. Who we listen to says something about who we are. It’s why features like Spotify Wrapped, Receiptify, and Apple Music Replay, have become internet mainstays: they serve as cultural symbols, totems of one’s personality.
The other ingredients lie with the label or publishers. Brand positioning, marketing, and branding are non-negotiable ingredients for breaking a star and sustaining momentum. Unfortunately, the industry is currently blighted by a crippling dearth of creative marketing. Tried and tested methods—positioning the artist with successful brands, individuals and events, TV, radio, magazine appearances, meet and greets with dedicated fans—have largely been spurned in favor of gimmicks such as engineering controversy and paying influencers to fan the embers of stan skirmishes. It’s worse that some of the biggest acts in the country have been the fiercest proponents of this disturbing trend. It almost seems like the precarious epigram “no publicity is bad publicity” has taken root. This is especially damaging for incipient acts, who, following in the footsteps of impudent established acts, burn through their limited public goodwill. Wizkid can afford to mouth incoherently for clicks without appalling the sensibilities of his fanbase, and the wider audience, because he has spent well over a decade shoring up goodwill and burnishing his reputation. This same audience will not afford a new act that has gone off the rails with the same grace.
Today the Nigerian music scene sits at a crossroad. A crossroads that could swivel in either direction; upward or downward, sunshine or rain, festivity or desolation. We hold the cards. We decide our fortune. If we collectively introspect and return to first principles, the simple, timeless things, then surely, a verdant future lies ahead.
