From For You Pages to #1 Hits: How Tik Tok is introducing Afrobeats to non-Black Gen-Z listeners

Sitting at the kitchen table of her childhood home, an elementary-school-aged Abigail Olabode swung her legs as she ate her afternoon snack. Each day after coming home from school, her father would play African music out loud until it was dinner time. Despite being of Nigerian descent, her father did not exclude playing music from Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya. While it wasn’t something she enjoyed listening to at the time, Olabode said she would deal with it for the sake of her father.

Now, the fourth-year psychology student at Wilfred Laurier University considers Afrobeats to be a go-to genre of music of hers. Olabode says she’s now a big fan of some of the same artists she listened to growing up such as Wande Coal, adding that the genre allows her to feel more connected to her roots. 

Due to the likes of Tik Tok and digital streaming platforms, contemporary Afrobeats music and artists have dominated Western music charts and the for you pages of many. In particular, it has gained popularity amongst gen Z audiences, many of whom are without African heritage and even non-Black.

Gen-Z Black Africans and experts say Tik Tok has helped the genre become more mainstream in recent years. Without the platform, hit singles like Ku Lo Sa (external link)  by Lagos-born Oxlade, and Last Last (external link)  by Burna Boy, one of Nigeria’s biggest stars according to Rolling Stone (external link) , would’ve not been able to reach as many audiences globally, says Olabode.

“The music is good. I like the music, but if somebody doesn't share it with you, how else are you going to find it?” said Olabode. “Tik Tok and social media platforms have such a wide stream spread and people backing on to trends is so popular now. Without that, people wouldn't really know how good it was. They wouldn't even know some artists exist. You don't hear it on the radio. Not much else you can do.”

While Spotify has decent Afrobeats playlists and is helpful in introducing people to new music similar to what they currently listen to through curated albums, “you have to know some to get more,” said Olabode. “If you don’t know any Afrobeats songs then you're probably not gonna get it.”

From Afro-beat to Afrobeats: a history

According to Nduka Otiono, an associate professor in the department of African studies at Carleton University, Afrobeats is a “complex” kind of popular music, mostly from West Africa. He says you cannot discuss the genre without talking about Fela Anikulapo Kuti (external link) , a Nigerian musician and activist who launched and popularized a “modern style of music called Afro-beat,” in the 1970s which fused American blues, jazz, and funk with traditional Yoruba music, according to Britannica (external link) . 

The genre was later coined as Afrobeats, and it represents an agglomeration of different kinds of African beats, says Otiono. While contemporary Afrobeats is digitally produced, modern in flavour, and sung in a mix of English, and West African languages, Kuti’s music was politically charged. 

Otiono says the best Afrobeats songs are message oriented and have deep lyrics. Burna Boy, for example, despite his crossover in the West, discusses economics, colonialism in Africa, and politics throughout his 2019 album, African Giant. 

“[Burna Boy] had such a dominating effect on contemporary African music, especially coming out of Nigeria,” said Otiono. “He essentially tries to capture the spirit of the continent with music very often associated with protests or with social messages all the time.”

Social media platforms such as Tik Tok, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as digital streaming platforms such as Spotify are a vessel for artists to become influencers and showcase their lifestyles online. This is one way Afrobeats artists were able to gain recognition internationally, beyond audiences from the African diaspora, says Otiono. 

“Documentation drives the popularity of the song,” he said. “This is very much in tune with contemporary [Afrobeats] artists, leading to collaboration between the artists and global artists in the West such as Drake and WizKid and so on and so forth, so this collaboration has intensified the popularity of Afrobeats.”

Non-Black listeners are bringing Afrobeats tunes from their For You Pages to their playlists

Scrolling through her Tik Tok’s for you page in the summer of 2021, Harsimran Gulri came across several videos playing a slow-ballad with lyrics she couldn’t quite decipher. Pressing on the moving record at the bottom of the Tik Toks, she discovered the song was a slowed-down version of the love song Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah) (external link)  by the Nigerian singer CKay. It was the first Afrobeats song she ever heard, but it opened up a whole new genre of music for her that she now listens to on a regular basis. In a few short months, three out of five of her most listened to songs on her Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year were Afrobeats songs introduced to her through Tik Tok.

“In the spring, I created a Afrobeats playlists that I pretty much listen to everyday. Some of my West African friends have helped me add onto the list, but mostly it’s been songs I’ve found after adding the viral Tik Tok ones in there,” said the fourth-year global management student at Toronto Metropolitan University.  

Despite having a number of West African friends growing up and living in Toronto, Gulri says she’s never heard an Afrobeats song before she had Tik Tok. Being of Punjabi descent, she compares how she usually doesn’t share her favourite Punjabi songs with her non-Punjabi friends. But now, some of her non-Punjabi friends are coming to her for song recommendations after that genre has picked up some traction on the mainstream level due to Tik Tok as well.

“I don’t blame my friends for not introducing me to it earlier, especially when it wasn’t trending,” said Gulri. 

Afrobeats helping to embrace culture, roots

Diverse, creative, and impactful are the words Sarah Nakimbugwe would use to describe Afrobeats music. While it’s a genre she wasn’t unfamiliar with before social media because she would hear it here and there growing up, Nakimbugwe credits Tik Tok for getting her back into it and says she appreciates it more now that she's older. 

“I preferred listening to hip-hop and radio hits growing up, but African music and Afrobeats always stuck with me because it’s a part of my roots. Whether I’m cooking or showering, that’s what I’m playing,” said the second-year criminology student from York University. 

Being Ugandan herself, Nakimbugwe says she feels proud and excited that African artists are getting international recognition.

“Before I was listening to Afrobeats with only my African friends. Now I can turn on the radio and hear WizKid play. The access has allowed Afrobeats to trend internationally,” said Nakimbugwe. 

In February 2022, Statistics Canada reported (external link)  that in 2016, 40 per cent of Canada’s Black population, or around 442,015 people, were living in Toronto. Across the country, it’s estimated the African Canadian population will double by 2031, according to a  (PDF file) 2011 report (external link)  by Statistics Canada. 

Nakimbugwe says she feels fortunate that she grew up around many other young Africans. As a result, it allowed her to openly embrace her culture and share it with those around her, including listening to Afrobeats. She credits Tik Tok for spreading African culture in a positive light to people across the world.

“I love how we’re now going viral and trending. Being African, I feel like a lot of us are ashamed of showing off our cultures, but the fact that we have something like Afrobeats out there that everyone can appreciate, I love it,” said Nakimbugwe. 

However, she says she’s not sure if she would’ve been this proud of her identity if she went to schools that didn’t have large African student populations. 

“If I went to a dominantly white school, I’d probably be less comfortable showing it off only because I'll be in a position where I'm the only one listening to [Afrobeats] and I’ll be an outcast,” said Nakimbugwe.

Mixed feelings about sharing culture

For other African students, they say the introduction of Afrobeats to non-Black peers is met with mixed feelings.

“I feel proud on one at one point, and I feel happy like okay, people like our music, it's good. But then at the same time, those people are most likely those who bullied us in school for having African features like big lips and a big nose and just being from Nigeria which growing up wasn't the coolest thing,” said Olabode. 

The psychology student says sometimes it makes her feel angry when she watches non-Black people steal credit from African creators by taking their dances and disguising it as their own, she says.

Today, artists from the African continent continue to not only dominate the ‘For You’ pages of many, but are also holding the top spots on Western music charts. Artists from Drake to Selena Gomez to Ed Sheeran are collaborating with Afrobeats artists which is continuing to catch the attention of listeners all over the globe. 

During her childhood years, Olabode would simply just deal with the fact that her dad liked to play African music in the house. The now 21-year-old beams and yells in excitement with her friends during night outs when Afrobeats songs play in the club. 

“I’m not usually a dancer, but when an Afrobeats song comes on, I’m grabbing my friends and I’m dancing like nobody’s watching,” said Olabode. 

“I think the genre will gain some new life-long listeners for sure. But, I feel like it might be a passing trend, who knows?”