For years, African music has been exported through a singular lens. One continent. One category. One sound. But the reality has always been far more layered.
Tyla winning Best Afrobeats Artist at the American Music Awards reignited a conversation many Africans have been having for years: what exactly qualifies as Afrobeats, and why does the world continue to use it as a blanket term for African music?
To understand the frustration, we first have to understand the differences.
Afrobeats, largely pioneered in Nigeria and Ghana, is a contemporary West African pop genre that blends highlife, hip hop, dancehall and electronic influences into globally accessible records. It’s the sound that helped African music break into international charts at scale.
Afro Pop, on the other hand, functions more as a broader umbrella. It’s African popular music that can borrow from amapiano, R&B, house, soul, dancehall or traditional rhythm structures. Tyla comfortably exists here, drawing heavily from amapiano and South African rhythm culture while maintaining mainstream pop sensibility.
Then comes Afro House and Afro Tech, genres deeply rooted in club culture and electronic music traditions. These sounds are spiritual, rhythmic and deeply tied to South Africa’s dance music ecosystem.
The issue isn’t whether Tyla deserved the award. The issue is whether global institutions have done enough work to understand the complexity of African sound beyond what is commercially digestible.
Because Africa has never been one sound.
And maybe the next evolution of global recognition is allowing African genres to exist independently, not as subcategories of each other, but as movements with their own histories, pioneers and futures.
.avif)
