Older genres classed in the World Music category and headlined by Angélique Kidjo continue to inspire newer genres, Afrobeats and Amapiano. Here are 25 standout tunes of 2023.
1. Tyler ICU & Tumelo.za featuring DJ Maphorisa, Nandipha808, Ceeka RSA & Tyron Dee, ‘Mnike’ (South Africa)
A Wikipedia entry is often reserved for big tunes like ‘Mnike’. Even if you don’t loiter in the Amapiano club, you would have heard ‘Mnike’. With accolades like the coveted top spot of the Billboard South Africa chart, its retinue of collaborators is hopefully smiling to the bank, doing that slow waist grind choreography in tandem, whistles in their mouths, sibilant hi-hats dictating their pace.
2. Tyla, ‘Water’ (South Africa)
Twenty-one-year-old newcomer Tyla took the world by surprise with her monster-sized single, contemplating visceral responses of a risqué kind. ‘Water’ is not about oceanic bodies. A girl interviews a boy for a role with the job description to make her “sweat and water”. Sultry vocals float on a percussive beat made by Sammy Soso. The perfect conceit is that this big Amapiano tune, which sidesteps the chilled vibe typical of South Africans, is in the race for the brand new Best African Musical Performance Grammys Award.
3. Fred again.. & Obongjayar, ‘adore u’ (Nigeria/Diaspora)
With Fred again..’s meteoric rise to dance-pop relevance, culminating in Grammy and Mercury Prize nods, one of the references to that success comes in the emotive ‘adore u’. It is a rejig of Nigerian soul singer Obongjayar’s tribute to his prodigious sibling, ‘I Wish It Was Me’. Stripped of synth, this song spews lucid commentary on sibling love – one part for Fred again..’s sister, the other for Obongjayar’s brother.
4. Asake featuring Olamide, ‘Amapiano’ (Nigeria)
Asake’s Fuji twist on ‘Amapiano’ often takes surprising turns, including a dated Apala word, Dunya. In his paean to the genre, Amapiano, the ‘big vibe’ that redeemed his dream for superstardom, he deconstructs its etymology. While video director Jyde Ajala ran with his piano imagery, Olamide came with hard bars worthy of a veteran. It is full circle for the creative/business duo of Asake/Olamide, one that comes after the shortest route to success in Afrobeats dominance and with a Grammy nomination.
5. Olivetheboy, ‘GoodSin’ (Ghana)
‘Goodsin’ is a bedroom ballad with verses full of adulation and shenanigans. Its originality lies in the irreverent but resonant repetition of good sin. With a music video bursting with vibrant summery colours, it embodies all the aspects of an Afrobeats ear candy. Olivetheboy’s ‘Goodsin’ is an unlikely hit and a game-changer for the newcomer who must now repeat this magic.
6. JZyNO featuring Lasmid, ‘Butta My Bread’ (Liberia)
In a world of transactional love complicated by mutual suspicion and commercialised affection, JZyNO contemplates love that “doesn’t care if [he’s] rich or poor”. Born Jonathan Lee Pratt and of Portuguese descent, the Ghana-based Liberian afrobeats singer JZyNO knows romance transcends borders and cultures. Hence, he reaches for Nigerian lingo in his opening verse.
7. Spyro featuring Tiwa Savage, ‘Who is Your Guy? (Remix)’ (Nigeria)
Infectious call-and-response defines this collaboration of newcomer Spyro and veteran Tiwa Savage, transcribing existential questions around friendships and reality checks. While Spyro passes himself off as a “good guy”, Savage relies on her committee of friends to vouch for her loyalty.
8. Victor Thompson featuring Ehis ‘D’ Greatest, ‘This Year (Blessings)’ (Nigeria)
More proclamatory than celebratory, gospel artist Victor Thompson takes a detour from his cover sessions for an afrobeat-tinged song. This song’s allure comes in the sonic pockets interspersed by monosyllabic chants of positivity, claimed equally by religious adherents and outsiders, to soundtrack their future lives in a year of global economic uncertainty and wars.
9. King Promise, ‘Terminator’ (Ghana)
King Promise, Ghana’s promise to Afrobeats, scored a well-deserved hit with ‘Terminator’. A nod to the ‘80s Hollywood action flick and a manifesto on his abilities, he coasts on the Killbeatz beat, channelling his inner Davido and blurring the gap between Ghanian and Nigerian Afrobeats.
10. Uncle Waffles, Tony Duardo & Justin99, featuring Pcee, Eeque & Chley, ‘Yahyuppiyah’ (South Africa)
It takes a community to make an Amapiano record and ‘Yahyuppiyah’ is no different with three headliners and featured acts. Dance choreography ready with the usual fare of sibilant synths and evenly paced heavy percussion at a run-time of just less than five minutes, we are neither at risk of myalgia induced by monotony nor arsed to focus on its sparse lyrics.
11. uLazi featuring Infinity MusiQ, ‘yey’ (South Africa)
Alexandra-born uLazi’s claim to fame happened on the eponymous hit track, ‘Ulazi’, is a paean by friend Zuma. Two years later, he returns with ‘yey’, a minimalist, piano-driven dance number almost devoid of the ubiquitous log drums. Like most addictive Amapiano records, ‘yey’ heavily depends on the active participation of body movements: eye-rolling (similar to ‘Kilimanjaro’), knee-bending, forward-and-backwards arm waving, tongue-rolling and other free-form somatic expressions.
12. Joshua Baraka, ‘NANA’ (Uganda)
Twenty-one-year-old Joshua Baraka is a special songwriter. On the dancehall-tempered ‘NANA’, his vocals float on the uptempo beat, swooning over a love interest, but still, he maintains an aloofness. When he sings, “You know you’re my one and only”, you believe his words more than the enthralling beauty he sings about.
13. Libianca, ‘People’ (Cameroon/Diaspora)
‘People’ raked in enough listens to be one of Afrobeats’ top-five most streamed songs ever in less than a year. While Libianca’s profile must confront this double-edged unprecedented success, the song’s ownership has been ceded to the people who cannot get enough of its perfect pitch and message: we may be the total sum of our troubles, but we don’t look at it.
14. KCee, ‘Ojapiano’ (Nigeria)
A virtuoso skilled at repurposing commonplace words into hits, KCee has earned his stripes over two decades cross-carpeting genres of gospel, pop, dancehall, hip hop and afrobeat. Now, forerunning a new subgenre of afropiano, the Limpopo master may not have invented the Ojapiano sound – the infusion of the Igbo flute Oja into Amapiano – as with other genres he’s previously delved into, but he knows how to make the inauthentic become seminal.
15. Ahmed Saad, ‘اختياراتي – من فيلم مستر إكس (Ekhtayaraty)’ (Egypt)
Arguably the biggest summer record from North Africa this year, ‘Ekhtayaraty’ (means “my choices”) is an upbeat and persuasive track built on Maqsoum rhythms. Original soundtrack of the comedy movie “Mr Ex”, Ahmed Saad’s melancholic lyrics of heartbreak beautifully contrasts the vibrant, dance-ready tune for a lazy day in the sun.
16. Pcee, S’gija, Disciples, Zan’Ten featuring Justin99, Mema_Percent & Mr JazziQ, ‘Kilimanjaro’ (South Africa)
It takes sonic mastery to differentiate Amapiano tunes, a thankless job when one reflects on Amapiano’s democratic and participatory ideals. The Amapiano dance party is about slick choreography and that choral response, in this instance, the repetitive ‘Kilimanjaro’, which is either a mountain or some kind of reveller’s summit.
17. Tebza De DJ & DJ Nomza The King, ‘Ka Valungu’ (South Africa)
In the synth-suffused, percussion-heavy and piano-lite world of Amapiano, ‘Ka Valungu’ stands out musically with a nostalgia that is not original. This tune updates the Shangaan disco standard, ‘African Vibe Part 2’ by Peter Teanet, who was tragically gunned down in 1996.
18. ShaunMusiQ & Tears, Xduppy featuring Myztro, Mellow & Sleazy, QuayR Musiq & Matuteboy, ‘Bhebha’ (South Africa)
Fancy a bass so intense it is treacherous to unprepared speakers? ‘Bhebha’ is your tune. Hardwired with a shuffling rhythmic groove that waits (relies) on the coming wicked bass, this jam is the stuff of dance challenges.
19. Krys M, ‘Qui Croira Verra’ (Cameroon)
Former lead vocalist of girl band Les Mo’Girls Krys M’s single, ‘Qui Croira Verra’, is genre-fluid and gospel-inflected. She sings about hope against life’s troubles, even in the face of Francis Ngannou-esque obstacles.
20. Roseline Layo, ‘Môgô Fariman’ (Côte d’Ivoire)
Francophone Africa scored a pop star in Roseline Layo, whose rise, in part, is due to the smash hit, ‘Môgô Fariman’, off her Elu de Dieu debut album. Built on popular zouglou sounds, ‘Môgô Fariman’ loosely means “great man”. A traditional praise song performed in Malinké and French, she namedrops the rich and famous in Ivorian society. Surprisingly, the music video packs political commentary featuring caricatures of the political class.
21. Burna Boy, ‘City Boys’ (Nigeria)
The urban dictionary describes the “city boy” as “a male living his very best life and chasing the bag at all times without letting hot girls or any female get in the way.” Burna Boy bigs up this persona in his outstanding single from his seventh album. With the excellent production value of sirens interspersed with hip-hop kicks, the most faithful youth would “dance [like] Rahman Jago” to Burna Boy’s infectious and hypnotic rhythms.
22. Zuchu, ‘Nani’ (Tanzania)
Reminiscent of Afrobeats’ pre-Amapiano Pon Pon moment, Zuchu channels the poster star of this era, Tekno, but her tribute is almost entirely done in Swahili with an intricate call and response layered on a waist-whining dancehall beat.
23. ZERB & Sofiya Nzau, ‘Mwaki’ (Kenya)
This infectious tune about in-law politics rendered in Kikuyu and drenched in dancy-steady, Tik-Tok-ready electronic music has become a DJ’s charm for plugging the dance floor with bodies. Produced by Brazilian ZERB, who bought vocal samples from Kenyan lyricist Sofiya Nzau, this is another social media miracle where a local language goes global on a hit song.
24. Gerilson Insrael, ‘Estou Paiado’ (Angola) UI
A sexy synth R&B rendition, Gerilson Insrael switches between tenor and falsetto while navigating seduction in Portuguese and pidgin English on ‘Estou Piada’. When words fail his sensuality, he relies on whistles laid over sparse production reminiscent of Rema’s ‘Soundgasm’.
25. Fathermoh & Ssaru, ‘Kaskie Vibaya’ (Kenya)
Gengetone achievement ‘Kaskie Vibaya’ is a flawless duet by the Mbuzi gang breakout Fathermoh featuring Ssaru. A lively exchange between ex-lovers fraught with vitriol and frothing on a dancehall/reggaeton beat with a call-and-response hook; this tune has spilt out of matatus and Kenyan lounges to major significant global acclaim.
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