From millions to trillions: The prospects for Afrobeats are limitless

From mere trickles a few years ago, Afrobeats’ audience is expanding rapidly. From New York to London to Paris and other world capitals, global audiences are vibing to the infectious rhythms of this contemporary African pop music that fuses a variety of genres like hip-hop, R&B and jazz.

Afrobeats has become a global sensation, pushing the likes of Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Tems, Ayra Starr, Asake, Tiwa Savage, and others onto the global stage.

From earning Grammy nominations to actually picking up Grammy Awards, selling out big arenas like the Madison Square Garden in the US, the O2 Arena in London, Paris La Defense Arena in France and others, and headlining international festivals, these artists have gained global relevance and are pushing to stay globally relevant.

It is a mark of breakthrough for this fast-rising music genre that is heavily influenced by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Afrobeat that The Recording Academy introduced a new category, the Best African Music Performance, for the 66th Grammy Awards in February 2024 to “celebrate the diversity and richness of Africa”.

About two years earlier, in March 2022, the United States Billboard had announced plans to create an ‘Official U.S. Afrobeats Songs Chart’ to track the sales and streaming data of Afrobeats songs in the U.S., just as the British Official Charts Company had done in July 2020 when it said it was creating an ‘Official UK Afrobeats Chart’ to track the sales and streaming data of Afrobeats songs in the UK.

Much of this global success of Afrobeats is driven by the rise of social media and streaming apps like Audiomack, Soundcloud, Boomplay, Apple Music, and Spotify, as well as the influence of Nigerians in diaspora. Between 2017 and 2023, for instance, there was a 550 per cent growth in Afrobeats streams on Spotify. The music genre was streamed over 13 billion times on the platform in 2022 alone, and London, Paris, and Nairobi ranked among the top five cities that streamed Afrobeats in 2023.

In September 2023, Rema’s “Calm Down” featuring Selena Gomez joined Spotify’s Billions Club, becoming the first African artist-led track to rack up a billion streams on the platform. The US, India, Mexico, Brazil, and the UK were the top countries that downloaded “Calm Down”.

The growth has also been helped by a rise in Afrobeats artists’ collaborations with international artists like Drake, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, Sam Smith, Kelly Rowland, Ed Sheeran, and others in the making, bringing the genre to massive new global audiences. International signings, such as WizKid’s multi-album deal with US labels RCA Records/Sony Music International in 2017, and Burna Boy’s deal with Atlantic, have also contributed.

The growth of Afrobeats has meant a rise in the earning capacity of the artists. In January 2025, for instance, Wizkid was announced as the highest paid African artist on Spotify, earning $1 million per month on the platform. Data from Chart Masters further showed that Burna Boy earns $782,148 per month on Spotify, Tems, $660,210, Tyla, $607,804, and Davido, $458,615.

Furthermore, Nigerian artists generated over $27 million from Spotify alone in 2022. Between 2022 and 2023, Burna Boy earned $12.3 million from a series of international concerts, according to Nairametrics quoting data sourced from ChartsAfrica on X, an authority in touring charts, box score reports, and Bloomberg Pollstar’s official ticket tracking.

While the numbers look good, they can get better, says Nigerian-American music icon and CEO of Bigmanity Music International, Jesse Woghiren, popularly known as THE BB02. For instance, Drake and Taylor Swift earn $7.7 million each on Spotify compared to a total of $3,507,777 that accrues to the top five African artists on the platform.

There is certainly much more money to be made. Afrobeats generated an estimated $100 million globally in 2023, for instance. From millions, the industry can scale to billions, and then trillions with the right actions.

To take Afrobeats to the next level, says THEBB02, the power of collaborations cannot be overstated. Deliberate, intentional cross-continental collaborations. Thankfully, some of this is already happening. The success of Rema’s “Calm Down” remix with Selena Gomez, which charted in some of the world’s biggest platforms, earned multiple certifications, and became the first African artist-led track to rack up a billion streams on Spotify, is a testament to the limitless possibilities that can be unlocked when a good Afrobeats sound finds the right international collaboration, just as Wizkid’s “Essence (Remix)” featuring Justin Bieber and Tems, and his “Ojuelegba (Remix)” feat Drake alongside British MC Skepta, Tiwa Savage’s “Somebody’s Son” feat Brandy, Fireboy’s “Peru” remix feat Ed Sheeran, Davido’s “Blow My Mind” featuring Chris Brown, and a few others. Even Drake’s 2016 “One Dance” featured Wizkid alongside British singer Kyla.

The song racked up over a billion streams to become Spotify’s most streamed song and was number 1 in 15 countries. So first, Afrobeats stars need to consistently make music good enough for globally acclaimed artists to want to jump on board. And they should be able to strike good deals from such collaborations.

While the collaborations are ongoing, THEBB02 says the significant population of Nigerian and African students across American universities can be leveraged to further keep Afrobeats in the face of Americans. Music, no doubt, influences cultures and societies. The more Americans (and the world) listen to Afrobeats, the more the genre and the artists are talked about, especially in reputable entertainment and lifestyle magazines like Rolling Stone, the more they garner international mainstream appeal, and the more money there is to be made.

But, for a start, up-and-coming artists back home need the right environment to make good music. The dearth of the right kind of structures and support systems has constituted an impediment to the rise of many an aspiring artist. Record labels like Mavin Records, Dapper Group, Chocolate City, Native Records, YBNL and a couple of others have been doing their best to support up-and-coming artists and push the frontiers, but more needs to be done.

For now, foreign labels who have signed some of the African artists continue to reap the fruits of Afrobeats’ global success while the genre’s countries of origin get the crumbs.