Long before TikTok challenges and Spotify playlists, African songs that went global had to do it the hard way. They travelled on shellac records carried across oceans, on cassettes passed between DJs, through Paris discos and New York lofts. Some took decades to find their audience. One made millions for everyone except the man who wrote it.
Here are ten of them, in the order they were recorded. Every one of these songs crossed borders without a single stream, share or viral clip.
1. “Mbube” by Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds (1939)
Solomon Linda was a migrant worker from rural Natal who packed records at Eric Gallo’s pressing plant in Johannesburg. In 1939 his a cappella group, the Evening Birds, improvised a song in Zulu about a lion hunt. “Mbube” made Linda famous across South Africa and shaped the isicathamiya choral style that Ladysmith Black Mambazo later took around the world.
Then the song left home. Pete Seeger’s folk group the Weavers covered it in 1951 as “Wimoweh”. Ten years later the Tokens added English lyrics, changed the melody and released “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, which went to number one in the United States. Disney’s The Lion King used it in 1994, a placement estimated to have earned the songwriters around $15 million.
Linda saw almost none of it. He had sold his rights to Gallo for ten shillings. His family sued Disney in 2004 and reached a settlement within two years, one of the most famous copyright cases in African music.
2. “Pata Pata” by Miriam Makeba (1967)
“Pata Pata” means “touch touch” in Xhosa, and it was named after a dance popular in the shebeens of Johannesburg’s townships in the 1950s. Makeba first recorded it with her girl group the Skylarks back home. By 1967 she was living in exile in the United States, and she cut a new version with producer Jerry Ragovoy, adding a spoken English part.
That recording reached number 12 on the Billboard chart on 25 November 1967. It became her signature song, which is remarkable for a woman whose own government had cancelled her passport.
3. “Grazing in the Grass” by Hugh Masekela (1968)
This one happened almost by accident. Masekela’s debut album was three minutes short, so his record company asked him to add a tune. Philemon Hou, a South African actor and singer who happened to be in the studio, came up with the melody while the backing track was already being recorded at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood.
The instrumental went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and ended up as the 18th biggest hit of the year. Fifty years later, in 2018, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. We told the full story in an exiled trumpeter’s American number one.
4. “Soul Makossa” by Manu Dibango (1972)
“Soul Makossa” was a B-side. The A-side was a song celebrating Cameroon hosting the Africa Cup of Nations. Then a copy turned up in a West Indian record shop in Brooklyn, and DJ David Mancuso started playing it at his famous parties at The Loft. The few copies in New York sold out, Frankie Crocker hammered it on WBLS radio, and at least 23 groups rushed out cover versions to cash in.
Dibango’s original reached number 35 on the Hot 100 in 1973. Its chant, “ma-ma-ko, ma-ma-sa, ma-ko ma-ko-sa”, later turned up in Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” and Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music”. It is often described as the most sampled African song in history. More in our Soul Makossa story.
5. “Sunshine Day” by Osibisa (1976)
Osibisa was formed in London in 1969 by Ghanaian saxophonist Teddy Osei, who persuaded his old bandmates Sol Amarfio and Mac Tontoh to join him from Ghana, along with Caribbean musicians based in the city. The name comes from “osibisaba”, a Fante word for highlife.
In January 1976 “Sunshine Day” reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart. It had a second life decades later when Richard Linklater used the band’s music in his film Boyhood. Teddy Osei died in London on 14 January 2025, aged 87. Read how Osibisa took Afro-rock into the British charts.
6. “Sweet Mother” by Prince Nico Mbarga (1976)
EMI turned down the demo in 1974, saying it had a “childish appeal”. Decca and Philips said no too. In December 1976 a small label in Onitsha, Rogers All Stars, finally released it.
The rejections aged badly. “Sweet Mother”, a highlife song in Nigerian Pidgin celebrating motherhood, is estimated to have sold somewhere between 3 and 13 million copies. In 2004 BBC readers and listeners voted it Africa’s favourite song, ahead of Brenda Fassie’s “Vuli Ndlela” and Fela Kuti’s “Lady”. Mbarga himself was Cameroonian-Nigerian, which makes it a song two countries can claim. Our Sweet Mother story has more.
7. “Weekend Special” by Brenda and the Big Dudes (1983)
Brenda Fassie was a young singer from Langa, Cape Town, when EMI released “Weekend Special” in February 1983. Written and produced by Port Elizabeth songwriter Melvyn Matthews, it sold more than 200,000 copies and was the fastest-selling single in South Africa that year.
It then crossed into America. A 1986 remix by New York producer Van Gibbs spent eight weeks on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart. The success sent Fassie touring the United States, Europe, Australia and Brazil. See the Madonna of the Townships and “Weekend Special”.
8. “Yé ké yé ké” by Mory Kanté (1987)
The Guinean kora player first released “Yé ké yé ké” in 1984, then remixed it for his album Akwaba Beach. That version became a European number one in 1988 and the first African single to sell more than a million copies. It topped the Dutch chart for two weeks and went top five in France, Switzerland and West Germany.
The lyrics are in Mandinka, adapted from a traditional song young griots use to flirt with each other through music and dance. Even Bollywood borrowed the tune for “Tamma Tamma Loge”. Here is the full Mory Kanté story.
9. “Didi” by Khaled (1992)
Algerian raï singer Khaled released “Didi” in 1992 and it reached number nine in France, spending 20 weeks in the Top 50. It was the first song sung in Algerian Arabic to chart there. It also went to number one in Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and became a hit in India.
Eighteen years later it was among the songs at the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Read how Khaled took raï to the world.
10. “7 Seconds” by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry (1994)
The Senegalese star and the Swedish singer released “7 Seconds” on 7 June 1994. It went top ten across Europe and stayed at number one in France for 16 weeks, a record at the time. N’Dour sings in three languages: French, English and Wolof.
There is a twist. N’Dour was ill during the sessions, so the English chorus was recorded by another singer. The song still won Best Song at the 1994 MTV Europe Music Awards. Later he became Senegal’s minister of culture, a story we covered in “7 Seconds” and the minister.
What these African songs that went global have in common
None of them had a marketing plan built for the world. They spread through people: a DJ in a Brooklyn loft, a folk singer in New York, Paris club crowds, BBC listeners voting from across the continent. Several were rejected, sold off cheaply or released as afterthoughts.
The same pattern still plays out today, only faster. An Angolan dance group filmed themselves to a South African house song, and “Jerusalema” went round the world in weeks. Solomon Linda waited his whole life and never saw the money. At least the songs now carry their makers’ names.
