Ranking songs is a good way to start an argument and a bad way to end one. Afrobeats has produced so much in the streaming era that any list this short is going to leave somebody’s favourite on the cutting-room floor. What follows are the records that did the real work of the last few years, the ones that turned up at every function, crossed borders without needing a translator, and made listeners who had never thought about Lagos or Accra start paying close attention. The order is arguable. The impact is not.
1. “Essence” by Wizkid (feat. Tems)
This is the song that kicked the door in for the whole movement abroad. It never raises its voice. The groove is slow and unbothered, Wizkid sounds like he is singing from a hammock, and Tems arrives with a verse that most people learned by heart within a week. What made it travel was exactly that refusal to try too hard.
It became the first record of its kind to properly cross into the American mainstream on its own terms, without being rebuilt into something else for a foreign audience. A remix with a big US name followed, but the original was already doing the damage. Years later it still sounds like the blueprint for how far a quiet song can go.
2. “Last Last” by Burna Boy
Heartbreak you can dance to is a hard trick, and Burna Boy pulled it off by building the whole thing on a sample listeners half-recognised before they could place it. The result felt instantly familiar and brand new at once, which is usually how the biggest records work.
It became the sound of a particular kind of night out, the one where you are somewhere between crying and dancing and cannot decide which. That emotional double-exposure is Burna Boy’s real gift, and this is the clearest example of it.
3. “Calm Down” by Rema
A melody light enough to float turned out to travel the furthest of all. Rema built something almost weightless, then watched it become one of the most-streamed African songs in history, helped along by a remix with a global pop star that opened doors the original had already been knocking on.
What is easy to miss is how strange the production is under that sweetness. Rema never makes a straightforward pop song even when he is making a hit, and the odd little details are part of why it stuck rather than fading like most viral tracks.
4. “Love Nwantiti” by CKay
A quiet song that the internet turned into a global reflex. For a stretch it was inescapable, soundtracking clips in countries where nobody could tell you a single other Nigerian record. That kind of reach used to be reserved for Western pop, and CKay got there with a soft, almost fragile love song.
It said something about how far the base sound could stretch. If a track this gentle and this specific could go everywhere, the ceiling everyone assumed existed was mostly imaginary.
5. “Fall” by Davido
The long-runner. While other hits burned bright and vanished, “Fall” kept finding new rooms to fill for years after it came out, quietly racking up the kind of numbers that only patient songs manage.
It is a reminder that Davido’s strength has always been reach and staying power rather than reinvention. He makes records built to last a wedding season, then another, then another, and this one lasted several.
6. “Peru” by Fireboy DML
A bar anthem that outgrew the bar. It started as a slice of good-time Lagos nightlife and ended up with an international remix and a life far beyond where it began. The bounce is simple and the hook is stubborn, which is all a great party record really needs.
Fireboy is usually the more introspective type, an album artist rather than a singles machine, so watching him land a pure banger like this showed a range people had underrated.
7. “Sungba” by Asake
The record that announced a whole new texture in Nigerian pop. Asake stacked Fuji-style group vocals over amapiano-adjacent drums and made something that did not sound quite like anything before it. The remix that followed only confirmed what the original had already promised.
It arrived fully formed, which almost never happens. Most artists spend years figuring out their sound in public. Asake showed up with his already built, and this was the moment everyone realised it.
8. “Rush” by Ayra Starr
Big, confident, and impossible to ignore on a first listen. “Rush” is the sound of a young artist who never planned to wait her turn, and it carried her from promising newcomer to headliner in the space of one chorus.
The songwriting is sturdier than the easy hook suggests. Underneath the sing-along is a proper melody with real bones, which is why it kept its legs long after the initial wave.
9. “Buga” by Kizz Daniel
Built for celebration and used for exactly that. “Buga” became the default soundtrack for good news of every kind, the record you put on the second something goes right. Its dance spread faster than the song itself in some places.
Kizz Daniel has quietly been one of the most consistent hitmakers of his generation, and this is him doing what he does best: an uncomplicated groove that refuses to leave your head.
10. “Understand” by Omah Lay
Melancholy dressed as a dance track, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. Omah Lay folds a real sadness into music you can still move to, and “Understand” is the cleanest version of that formula.
He is one of the few in this wave making genuinely introspective pop, songs about pressure and doubt that still work at a party. That tension is why his best records reward repeat listens instead of wearing out.
Leave off your favourite? Good. That means the scene is deeper than any list can hold, which is the healthiest problem a music culture can have.
