The perfect playlist will act as the soundtrack to all the moments in your life – whether you’re getting amped for a huge week, feeling the blues, or celebrating your city.
Since its inception in 2008, playlists have gradually become more integral to how people access and share music on Spotify. Today, these unique collections of songs, curated along themes, ideas, or emotions are at the heart of how music is enjoyed on the platform.
Each Spotify playlist offers its own unique experience, from the songs included, to the moods they set. While the platform boasts a vast music library and its famed algorithm – you may have found yourself wondering – how is all this magic put together?
To celebrate African love this Valentine’s Day, Benewaah Boateng, Spotify’s West Africa editor walks us through the process of putting together the 100 Best African Love Songs playlist, which encapsulates the expressions of African love that have elevated romantic moments across the continent over the years.
It begins with why…
Setting the mood is also an opportunity to determine the playlist’s length. Most mood playlists on Spotify have an ideal range of 50 to 70 songs, which provides a convenient sonic experience for listeners. In this case, however, to give us enough room to showcase the range of African love songs, 100 is the magic number.
The 100 Best African Love Songs playlist is a culture playlist curated to help fans express themselves on Valentine’s Day, a global celebration of love and affection. To select the perfect starter, according to Boateng, the team began by considering what themes and feelings the playlist would convey – love, affection, intimacy, gratitude, and African love in its various forms.
“There are quite a few iconic songs that immediately come to mind. CKay’s Love Nwantiti is one of the most streamed African songs on Spotify and has proved to be an access point for many fans to enjoy African music. Djadja, by Ivorian singer, Aya Nakamura is another uniquely African tune that has grown into a global fan favourite and is easily familiar to many fans of African love songs,” Boateng said.
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Trusting the process
According to Boateng, when creating a Spotify playlist, curators always trust the process because the listener is the priority. “If one made a playlist based on their taste alone, there would be only one consumer. Each playlist should have a specific audience, a group of people who share the same feeling, moods, tastes, or the same cultural background that will help them relate to the playlist,” he said.
He said that in building a cultural playlist that captures the various forms of love across the continent, the 100 Best African Love Songs playlist was curated along three elements; nostalgia, popularity, and storytelling, and with the help from editors across regions in East and South Africa, they were able to select songs along those lines.
In the realm of African love songs, 2Baba’s African Queen, for instance, is an iconic African love song that has soundtracked everything from movies to weddings over two decades. African Queen evokes strong nostalgia among fans who were around for its trailblazing run, being the first African song and the music video to be played on MTV Base and its subsequent EMA win.
There are also popular songs that cut across Africa’s internal borders and have transcended regions or gone further and taken expressions of African love to global popularity. South Africa’s Asibe Happy by Kabza de Small, DJ Maphorisa, and Ami Faku, for instance, was well accepted around the world while Kenya’s Malaika by Nyashinski showed the artist’s chops as a vocalist.
Boateng said other songs find their place on the playlist for their storytelling, whether it’s a relatable story or the vivid images the lyrics paint. Hamba, by South Africa’s Lira comes to mind here as a song that perfectly captures the sentiments of a woman who has had enough in her relationship. Nameless’ Sinzia, on the other hand, is a depiction of how true love often feels, especially in the beginning stages.
Finding balance
Sequencing is vital in determining the order in which the songs appear. According to Boateng, he said, “In putting this playlist together, we looked to reflect the music the audience already knows and loves while staying true to our mission to drive music and artist discovery.
This requires placing worthy newer and niche songs alongside popular tracks, to ensure that each song is in a place to be listened to and every perspective is represented. “For instance, you’ll find an eclectic track – Fanti Love Song, by Ghanaian singer, M3nsa, alongside essentials by legends like P-Square’s No One Be Like You,” He said.
According to Boateng, it was impossible to create this playlist without paying homage to certain African love classics and the artists who made them. The global success of African music stands on the shoulders of artists like D’Banj, Brenda Fassie, Sauti Sol, and some classic love songs like Fall In Love, Nomakanjani, and Lazizi which have all transcended borders, markets, and even language to build foundations for African music as a whole.
For the newer generation artists songs like Rema’s Calm Down, sung in Nigerian pidgin, and certified multi-platinum in France and many other European countries is one such. South African songstress, Elaine’s You’re The One and Ex by Kenyan singer, Nikita Kering are also new generational African love songs that have travelled beyond the artists’ native shores.
Spotify has also created different playlists to express different facets of love. There’s the ‘End In Tears’ playlist – the title says everything you need to know about the songs included. There’s a wedding song playlist with all the wedding classics titled ‘Small Chops after the fried pastry’ that is a staple at West African weddings.
Whether you’re celebrating love this Valentine’s Day or mourning it, you can be sure there’s a perfect collection of songs for your mood, curated carefully with you in mind.
