Apple Music has published Afrobeats Hits: Best of 2026, its editors’ pick of the year in Afrobeats: 100 songs, four hours and 43 minutes of music. Ghanaian artists are on five of them. Asake alone is on ten.
That number is the story. Ghana has had a big year at home, with Black Sherif’s SUN SHERIF, Kweku Smoke’s NO DAYS OFF and a run of singles from Sarkodie, King Promise and Gyakie. On Apple’s continental year-end list, though, Ghana is a small presence among Nigerian stars. Here is who made it, where they sit in the running order, and who did not.
The playlist in numbers
The playlist is curated by Apple Music Afrobeats, the same team behind last year’s Best of 2025 edition. The order is the editors’ running order, not a chart, so a song at number 40 is not officially “ranked” below one at number 10. Still, the count of appearances tells you who the editors leaned on.
Asake leads with ten songs, including three songs shared with Wizkid (“Jogodo”, “Turbulence” and “Alaye”). BNXN appears on eight, Victony and FOLA on seven each, Mavo and Ayra Starr on six, and Wizkid, Davido and Seyi Vibez on five. Almost every big name on the list is Nigerian. Uganda gets Joshua Baraka’s “what do i know”, and the UK gets Dave and Tems on “Raindance”.
Black Sherif: “PopStar” (track 39)
The first Ghanaian song on the list is Black Sherif‘s “PopStar”, which comes in at track 39. MyJoyOnline reported that it was his first single of 2026, released through RBA and Empire on 27 March and produced by Joker Nharnah. NotJustOk described it as an introspective look at his identity as a star, and the video followed in April.
Black Sherif is the only Ghanaian with two songs on the playlist. The second comes much later, and it is not under his own name (more on that below). His year also included the SUN SHERIF EP in September and a guest spot on M.anifest’s “ROAD RAGE” in October.
KiDi and Lasmid: “Signature” (track 40)
Immediately after it comes “Signature”, KiDi‘s duet with Lasmid, released on 30 April 2026. Apple lists it under Black Boy Joy, under exclusive licence to Encore Recordings, and Citi Newsroom presented it as a lead-up to KiDi’s album Where Do We Go From Here. The producer credit reads “Ugly, Tough”: the same team, credited as uglyxtough, produced AlorG’s “All Of A Sudden” this year.
Lasmid won season 8 of MTN Hitmaker in 2019, the same competition KiDi won in 2015. His “Friday Night” (2022) went viral on TikTok and won Best Hiplife Song at the 2023 Ghana Music Awards, where he was also named Best New Artiste.
D Global and Lasmid: “Darkest Style” (track 41)
Track 41 is Ghanaian too, which makes positions 39 to 41 a short Ghanaian run in the middle of the playlist. “Darkest Style” by D Global and Lasmid came out on 20 February 2026 through D Global Records and ONErpm, according to Apple Music. It is just 2 minutes and 18 seconds long. It also makes Lasmid the second Ghanaian with two songs on the list, both of them collaborations.
Gyakie: “Your Body (Crazy)” (track 77)
The newest Ghanaian song on the list is Gyakie‘s “Your Body (Crazy)“, released on 16 October 2026. It is the first release from her label FlipTheMusic’s distribution partnership with Warner Music Africa, and coverage of the release credited AfroLektra as producer. Making a year-end list with a song barely three weeks old says something about how quickly the editors picked it up.
Davido featuring Black Sherif: “Amazing Grace” (track 86)
Black Sherif’s second appearance is as a guest. “Amazing Grace” is from Davido’s album Oriadé, released on 31 July 2026, and it sits at track 86. Davido has five songs on the playlist, and this is the one with a Ghanaian voice on it.
Who is missing
The absences are just as interesting. There is no song by Sarkodie, King Promise, Stonebwoy or Shatta Wale.
There is nothing from Kweku Smoke’s NO DAYS OFF, even though every one of its tracks sat in the Apple Music Ghana top 20 in late September. Essumann’s “Big Bricks II”, one of the biggest Ghanaian videos of the year, is not there either.
Part of the explanation is the label. This is an Afrobeats playlist, and much of Ghana’s biggest music in 2026 was rap, drill, highlife or dancehall. Kweku Smoke and Essumann make hip-hop, and Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale make dancehall.
What the five tell us
Three of the five Ghanaian entries are collaborations, and two Ghanaians appear twice. The editors picked songs that already travel across West Africa: KiDi and Lasmid’s Afrobeats duet, Gyakie’s Afro-fusion single with a major distributor behind it, and Black Sherif, who already has a Davido feature and a BET nomination to his name.
Ghanaian artists still dominate the charts at home. The continental year-end picture is more Lagos-shaped. The list is on Apple Music now, and the five songs above are the place to start.
