Afrobeats doesn't stay still. New voices break through every year, pulling the sound in new directions while keeping the rhythm that ties it all together. Here are five artists worth paying attention to right now.
Ayra Starr
Signed to Mavin Records, Ayra Starr broke through as a teenager and has only gotten sharper since. Her sound blends Afrobeats with pop and R&B, built around a voice that sounds confident far beyond her age. She's become one of the clearest examples of Afrobeats' new generation: raised on the genre, not just adjacent to it.
Asake
Few artists have moved as fast as Asake. His music fuses Afrobeats with street-pop, fuji and amapiano influences into something that sounds unmistakably his own, chant-like hooks over rolling percussion. He turned that sound into one of the most distinctive runs in recent Afrobeats history, and he's still building on it.
Rema
Rema calls his sound "Afrorave," and it's a fair description: Afrobeats stretched toward something more electronic and global. His breakout reached far beyond the usual Afrobeats audience, and he's used that reach to keep experimenting rather than repeat himself.
Omah Lay
Where a lot of Afrobeats leans upbeat, Omah Lay works in the space between celebration and melancholy. His songwriting is direct and emotional, and it's carried him from Port Harcourt to festival stages across Europe without losing what made his early music connect in the first place.
Tyla
Tyla's rise ties directly into what we cover a lot on this blog: the blur between Afrobeats, Amapiano and pop. She's South African, her biggest records lean Amapiano, and she's proof that the lines between these sounds matter less to listeners than they do to genre pages like this one.
Hear It for Yourself
Reading about a sound only gets you so far. Check The Playlist to hear tracks that carry the same energy as these five, and see our upcoming events to hear it live.