Afrobeat vs afrobeats

It’s been a few years since we have been listening to Afrobeats, but we haven’t yet distinguished the difference between Afrobeat from Afrobeats.

Afrobeat is the combination of  Nigerian and Ghanian music created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti known as Fela Kuti a multi-

instrumental, musician, composer and activist. Afrobeat, when played in its best form, enjoys orchestrated music coming from a wide range of instruments including Saxophones, Rhythm guitars, Trumpets, Tenor Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drum set, Trombone, Organ, Rhythm Conga (1 &2, Solo), Akuba, Sticks/Claves, Shekere, Gbedu Drum, Lead and Chorus Vocals. (J. Source, 2016) Fela went in America during 1969 where he met  Sandra Smith, a singer and former Black Panther who introduced his biggest activist influences: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis.

This is why the activist spirit, politics, spiritualism are the main presences of Afrobeat. The term is coined to distinguish afrobeat from soul music, afro-funk and to mark a difference from James Brown. Fela used music as a channel to shout the despair of the population forced to suffer the injustices and corruption.

Afrobeats instead is not a music genre. It’s a false misnomer coined in the UK.  The sound of Wizkid, 2Face, P-Square, D’Banj, called Afrobeats, in reality, it doesn’t have much to do with the traditional sound, and it doesn’t correspond with the live music tradition still active today.  The term “Afrobeats” is used as a catch-all term for all popular music emerging from the African continent. ( K. Akinsete, 2019) The term is basically the package of African culture in a format that is adapted to be sellable to the Western audience. encourages a false story about Africa without giving credit to Africa.

So why we need to call it afrobeats if already exists afrobeat as African identity? For example, Blues was born in America and if I make some Blues and I live in Italy, still it would be called Blues. Why if Rap, still from USA,  made in Italy ( or any other country besides USA) it has to preserve his identity and be called rap? I believe it would have differences in style, lyrics, content, etc. Talking about rap, I see nowadays rappers, teens, or new artists who rap about being from the ghetto, they almost try to describe the ghetto life that surely has nothing to do with real life in the ghetto. I m sure most of these new rappers come from wealthy families and don’ t know what’s life in the ghetto. So, by doing so we kind of playing with the roots of a particular genre, with the reason why the genre was born by denigrating the struggle of people that really lived this type of life.

There are the terms offered as replacement terms to replace Afrobeats with “Afropop or afro-fusion. It is difficult to find a simple and respectful solution that does not affect the tradition and culture of a country, in this case, Africa.

I think that new listeners needed to be educated with the right vocabulary to experience varying cultures.

Enjoy the playlists below with some afrobeat and Fela Kuti’s songs and afrobeats below

Featured image by Daniel-James