Performative or Genuine?

Such collaborations are no stranger to Afrobeats; the genre has been built on the fusion of a variety of sounds such as dancehall, pop, R&B, Amapiano and several others over the past decade. This heterogeneity has been a large contributor to Afrobeats’ massive—and increasing—global appeal and commercial boom, allowing the music to strongly resonate with a wide range of Black audiences, both within and outside Africa. Several of the genre’s leading names have leveraged international collaborations to access even larger audiences by riding on the commercial juggernaut that is the United States’ music industry.

Irrespective of one’s stance on the musical contributions of these collaborators, their commercial impact cannot be overlooked. For example, the ‘Calm Down’ remix featuring Selena Gomez has amassed over 700 million streams on Spotify, and while the original version of the song has an impressive 400 million streams on the same music platform, the numbers clearly indicate that the remixed version of the song reached a wider range of listeners, therefore lending commercial reason to why Nigerian artists are quick to collaborate with western artists. The case is similar for other hits; the remix of Fireboy’s ‘Peru’ has 250 million streams on Spotify (vs 85 million streams for the original version) while Justin Bieber’s presence on ‘Essence’ by Wizkid and Tems catapulted an already high-performing single to stratospheric heights. Speaking on the ‘Essence’ remix in 2021, Audiomack’s Lagos team said, ‘Necessary musically? No. For reach, yes. It’s a strategic play that will guarantee chart positioning easily and get listeners’.

In addition, the past few years have seen collaborations between leading Afrobeats artists and more ‘traditional’ artists such as Angelique Kidjo, Youssou N’Dour, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and several others. The motivations behind these collaborations are less clear, with certain power dynamics in the global music industry and recently increased interest in engaging with African histories inviting us to take a closer look at the situation.

During the isolation of the pandemic, now three years ago, music served as a lifeline to many, including myself. A particular day of interest during this time was 14 August 2020; I gathered with some close friends over a video call to listen to Burna Boy’s newly released album, Twice as Tall. The self-proclaimed ‘African Giant’ set the tone for the rest of the album with the intro song, ‘Level Up’, a song which includes a vulnerable recollection of Burna Boy’s disappointment with losing the Grammy Award for Best Global Album earlier in the same year. The song also features vocals from seven-time Grammy nominee, Youssou N’Dour, described by Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 as ‘the most famous singer alive in much of Africa’. As we listened to the rest of the album, some of which featured words from Diddy–who executive-produced the album along with Burna’s mother and manager–and collaborations with other American heavyweights such as Timbaland and Naughty by Nature, we knew he would win it this time. Although we unanimously agreed that African Giant was a better album, this entire album seemed painstakingly engineered to win a Grammy, including that Youssou N’Dour feature. By featuring Youssou N’Dour, Twice as Tall was able to incorporate the type of music the Academy applauds or appreciates in respect to ‘Global’ music–a vague term which is discussed and addressed in the article A Myopic Perception of Non Western Music. Burna Boy has risen to incredible heights in the past five years and developed a large fanbase in the United States’ and European markets, largely helped by crafting a ‘Pan-Africanist’ identity that endears him to the African diaspora. Burna Boy was nominated again in the same category earlier this year for his Love, Damini album. However, despite features from widely acclaimed artists, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the legendary South African group with five Grammy award wins, Love Damini did not win the Grammy.

Much like Burna Boy’s entire socially conscious, Pan-Africanist persona, these features seem largely performative. This is perhaps most clear to Nigerians living in Nigeria, who watched his historic performance in Madison Square Garden—which opened with a stunning rendition by Youssou N’Dour delivered to Burna Boy’s true target audience—and then months after were treated to ‘God punish una’ and other insults after waiting for over five hours to see the artist perform in Lagos last December. During the February 2023 presidential elections, the results of which have been the subject of intense controversy and scrutiny across the country, many were quick to address the self-proclaimed African Giant’s silence on the process. The artist responded, ‘I’ve never supported any political party or candidate in my life because I don’t want to make you vote and then blame me…’ While everyone is certainly within their rights to (not) share political opinions, his actions and inactions confirm that there is little substance behind his ‘hot take’ lyrics and ‘African Giant’ act.