Afrobeats is now one of the most streamed sounds on the planet, but its rise is full of odd turns: a London radio show, a Nigerian EP that got popular because of a Kanye West album, and a British station that existed only to play it. These Afrobeats facts show how a West African pop sound became a global genre in barely 15 years.
Here are 12 that even long-time fans may not know.
1. MTV Base Africa gave it a launch pad in 2005
Before streaming, the big break was television. When MTV Base Africa launched in 2005, West African artists suddenly had a channel seen across the continent. Early users included Nigeria’s M.I Abaga and Naeto C and Ghana’s Sarkodie, though many of them were still making their own takes on American hip-hop at the time.
2. The name came from a London radio show in 2011
DJ Abrantee is credited with popularising the word “Afrobeats” when he launched his show on London’s Choice FM in April 2011. It was the first time “Afrobeats” trended, and the show became a route onto British daytime radio. For the difference between the two names, read Afrobeat or Afrobeats?
3. “Oliver Twist” was the first Afrobeats UK top 10 hit
D’banj’s “Oliver Twist”, put online in the summer of 2011, reached number 9 on the UK Singles Chart in 2012. That made him the first Afrobeats artist in the British top ten. Years later Mr Eazi credited D’banj with encouraging Nigerians to embrace their own accents instead of copying American ones.
4. France fell for P-Square before the UK did
In 2012 P-Square remixed their 2009 hit “E No Easy” with French singer Matt Houston. It became the first Afrobeats song to reach the top five in France, spending 29 weeks on the French chart and 16 in Belgium. It was the first Afrobeats summer hit in France, and it boosted the genre across French-speaking countries.
5. A British radio station once played nothing else
In 2016 Beat FM in north London became the first British radio station dedicated entirely to Afrobeats. Four years later, in July 2020, the Official Charts Company launched the Official UK Afrobeats Chart. In March 2022 Billboard followed with a US Afrobeats Songs chart.
6. Wizkid’s RCA deal set a record
In 2017 Wizkid signed with RCA Records in what was described as the biggest deal an African musician had ever received. On 1 October 2017 he became the first African artist to headline and sell out London’s Royal Albert Hall. He also earned a Guinness World Record for featuring on Drake’s “One Dance”, at the time the most streamed song on Spotify.
7. Mr Eazi calls his music “banku music”
Mr Eazi broke through in 2016 with “Skin Tight” and “Bankulize”, both produced by British-Ghanaian producer Juls. He calls his sound “banku music”, after the Ghanaian dish, because Ghana shaped it as much as Nigeria. He was also the first African pop artist to get an extensive Apple Music artist page.
8. Kanye West accidentally boosted Burna Boy
In January 2018 Burna Boy released a song called “Ye”. In June 2018 Kanye West released an album called Ye. Fans searching for Kanye’s album kept landing on Burna Boy’s song instead, and his US streams jumped by 200%, past 11.2 million.
9. “Fall” took two years to become an American radio hit
Davido‘s “Fall” became a top 20 radio hit in America 24 months after it was released, and became the longest-charting Nigerian song in Billboard history at the time. In April 2021 it was the first Nigerian Afrobeats video to pass 200 million YouTube views.
10. Rema was on Barack Obama’s summer playlist
Rema was the first Nigerian musician to land a song on Barack Obama’s annual summer playlist, in 2019, the same year “Dumebi” made him a star at home.
11. Yemi Alade’s “Johnny” set a YouTube record
In July 2019 Yemi Alade‘s “Johnny” became the most viewed music video by an African woman on YouTube, putting her second only to Davido for views on a single video at the time.
12. Afrobeats streams grew 550% in five years
Between 2017 and 2022 Afrobeats streams on Spotify grew by 550%. In February 2023 Burna Boy, Tems and Rema became the first African artists to headline a major US sports half-time show, at the NBA All-Star Game in Salt Lake City. In 2024 the Grammys added Best African Music Performance, won first by Tyla.
The Afrobeats facts that matter most
Look at these together and a pattern appears. Afrobeats grew through the diaspora first, in London clubs, on Choice FM and in Paris, before American radio paid attention. Each step needed someone to open a door: a DJ, a remix, a famous fan. Today the doors are open, and the numbers keep climbing.
