Since the days of Fela Kuti, the genre of Afrobeats has expanded to include components of Western music. These components include jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues: much recently it has included hip hop and rap components as well. Since then, Afrobeats has been appealing to a much wider audience, playing in countries all over Africa, the United Kingdom, and here in the United States. Before I talk about modern Afrobeats (Afropop). I must talk about Mother Africa’s most popular song. Miriam Makeba (known as Mother Africa) had a popular hit that was release in Africa in the late 1950’s, but wasn’t released in the states until 1967. It was the song “Pata Pata” and many others that introduced the West to Afrobeats.
Since then Afrobeats has been appealing to all types of people, and modern Afrobeats artists have responded to its global fan base. Now lets get into the expansion of Afrobeats. With the expansion Afrobeats, came the creation of Afropop, which just means African popular music. With the influence of Western music, recently hip hop, African music has gotten to be a lot more upbeat, for example the popularized song Azonto. There are also many new age artists using the Western influence to their advantage. Their songs get played in clubs, not only in Africa but in the UK as well. Even parties at Rutgers feature a set with exclusively African music. It’s only a matter of time before Afropop music gets played in clubs across the country!
-Diana Perpignan
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