Top 10 African Music Genres

Amapiano is a South African house music subgenre born in Pretoria's townships around 2012, built on a distinctive "log drum" bass line, jazz piano chords, and deep synthesizers played at a mid-tempo that feels simultaneously energetic and hypnotic. By 2023 it had become the world's fastest-growing music genre by streaming growth rate, with global hits from artists such as Kabza De Small, DJ Maphorisa, Focalistic, and Ami Faku. Amapiano has been adopted by pop producers in the UK, US, and Brazil, and played at festivals from Coachella to AfroPunk.

Highlife is the foundational popular music of West Africa, originating in Ghana in the early 20th century as a blend of Akan traditional music, Christian hymns, and British brass band influence played for the colonial "high life" dancing clubs. Ghana's E.T. Mensah popularized highlife across the African continent in the 1950s, and the genre gave birth to Afrobeats, afro-fusion, and juju music. Contemporary artists including Sarkodie, Okyeame Kwame, and Bisa Kdei have revived highlife in the 2020s with Afropop production values.

Juju music is a Nigerian genre originating among the Yoruba people of Lagos, built on talking drums, guitars, and praise singing, with legendary exponents King Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey who dominated African popular music from the 1970s through the 1990s. King Sunny Ade's 1982 international release "Juju Music" was nominated for a Grammy and introduced the genre to a global audience, with the New York Times calling it "music of irresistible beauty." Juju's influence on Afrobeats production — particularly its rhythmic complexity and call-and-response vocal structures — is pervasive.

The original Afrobeat, created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti in Lagos in the late 1960s, is a politically explosive genre fusing Yoruba percussion, American jazz, James Brown-style funk, and Pidgin English lyrics that directly attacked military dictatorship and Western imperialism. Fela's 30-minute songs — performed with his Egypt 80 band of over 70 musicians — were revolutionary acts, with recordings confiscated and his commune (Kalakuta Republic) burned down by Nigerian soldiers in 1977. His influence reaches every major African musician working today, and Broadway's "Fela!" ran for two years in New York.

Kwaito is South Africa's defining post-apartheid youth music — a township dance genre born in Johannesburg in the early 1990s that slows down house music to around 110 BPM and overlays it with South African slang, call-and-response chants, and hip-hop attitude. Artists such as Arthur Mafokate, Brenda Fassie, and TKZee became the voice of a generation celebrating freedom after 1994, while kwaito's visual culture — baggy clothes, township slang, and communal dance moves — defined Black South African youth identity for a decade. Kwaito is considered Amapiano's direct predecessor.

Afro-soul and afro-pop refer to a broad family of melodically rich South African and East African genres that blend soul, R&B, and indigenous musical traditions, represented by artists such as South Africa's Sho Madjozi, Nathi Mankayi, and Zahara, and Kenya's Sauti Sol and Nviiri the Storyteller. The genre has driven a renaissance in African-language popular music in the 2020s, with Swahili-language and isiZulu-language pop hitting global streaming platforms and reaching audiences in Scandinavia, Asia, and North America. Sauti Sol's YouTube channel has accumulated over 350 million views.

Coupé-décalé is an Ivorian dance music genre created in Paris by Ivorian DJs and artists in the early 2000s, characterized by electronic beats, DJ shoutouts, and showy dance moves — the name roughly translates to "cut and run" in reference to the genre's flashy, playful attitude. It swept Francophone Africa from Senegal to the Congo and influenced Afrobeats production throughout the 2010s, with DJ Arafat becoming its most celebrated star before his death in 2019. Coupé-décalé remains the dominant dance music genre of Ivory Coast and its diaspora.

Afrobeats drill is a 2020s hybrid genre that blends Chicago-UK drill's menacing 808 basslines and trap hi-hats with Afrobeats melodic sensibility and West African Pidgin English lyrics, pioneered by Nigerian artists including Lil Kesh, Olamide, and UK-Nigerian acts like Headie One and Unknown T. The genre has crossed over significantly in the UK, where it sits at the intersection of the thriving British drill scene and the Afrobeats diaspora. Its popularity reflects the cultural power of Nigerian youth in shaping global youth music in the 2020s.

Benga is Kenya's original electric guitar music, developed by Luo musicians in Nairobi in the 1940s and 1950s and reaching its commercial peak in the 1970s and 1980s with artists such as D.O. Misiani, Fadhili William, and Daniel Owino Misiani. Built on the Luo nyatiti lyre tradition translated to electric guitar, benga's intricate fingerpicking patterns and warm, overlapping guitar lines influenced guitar music across East and Central Africa. It is considered the ancestor of modern Kenyan pop and is experiencing a global revival among world music enthusiasts and musicians in Europe and Japan.

Amapiano is a South African house music subgenre born in Pretoria's townships around 2012, built on a distinctive "log drum" bass line, jazz piano chords, and deep synthesizers played at a mid-tempo that feels simultaneously energetic and hypnotic. By 2023 it had become the world's fastest-growing music genre by streaming growth rate, with global hits from artists such as Kabza De Small, DJ Maphorisa, Focalistic, and Ami Faku. Amapiano has been adopted by pop producers in the UK, US, and Brazil, and played at festivals from Coachella to AfroPunk.

Highlife is the foundational popular music of West Africa, originating in Ghana in the early 20th century as a blend of Akan traditional music, Christian hymns, and British brass band influence played for the colonial "high life" dancing clubs. Ghana's E.T. Mensah popularized highlife across the African continent in the 1950s, and the genre gave birth to Afrobeats, afro-fusion, and juju music. Contemporary artists including Sarkodie, Okyeame Kwame, and Bisa Kdei have revived highlife in the 2020s with Afropop production values.

Juju music is a Nigerian genre originating among the Yoruba people of Lagos, built on talking drums, guitars, and praise singing, with legendary exponents King Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey who dominated African popular music from the 1970s through the 1990s. King Sunny Ade's 1982 international release "Juju Music" was nominated for a Grammy and introduced the genre to a global audience, with the New York Times calling it "music of irresistible beauty." Juju's influence on Afrobeats production — particularly its rhythmic complexity and call-and-response vocal structures — is pervasive.

The original Afrobeat, created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti in Lagos in the late 1960s, is a politically explosive genre fusing Yoruba percussion, American jazz, James Brown-style funk, and Pidgin English lyrics that directly attacked military dictatorship and Western imperialism. Fela's 30-minute songs — performed with his Egypt 80 band of over 70 musicians — were revolutionary acts, with recordings confiscated and his commune (Kalakuta Republic) burned down by Nigerian soldiers in 1977. His influence reaches every major African musician working today, and Broadway's "Fela!" ran for two years in New York.

Kwaito is South Africa's defining post-apartheid youth music — a township dance genre born in Johannesburg in the early 1990s that slows down house music to around 110 BPM and overlays it with South African slang, call-and-response chants, and hip-hop attitude. Artists such as Arthur Mafokate, Brenda Fassie, and TKZee became the voice of a generation celebrating freedom after 1994, while kwaito's visual culture — baggy clothes, township slang, and communal dance moves — defined Black South African youth identity for a decade. Kwaito is considered Amapiano's direct predecessor.

Afro-soul and afro-pop refer to a broad family of melodically rich South African and East African genres that blend soul, R&B, and indigenous musical traditions, represented by artists such as South Africa's Sho Madjozi, Nathi Mankayi, and Zahara, and Kenya's Sauti Sol and Nviiri the Storyteller. The genre has driven a renaissance in African-language popular music in the 2020s, with Swahili-language and isiZulu-language pop hitting global streaming platforms and reaching audiences in Scandinavia, Asia, and North America. Sauti Sol's YouTube channel has accumulated over 350 million views.

Coupé-décalé is an Ivorian dance music genre created in Paris by Ivorian DJs and artists in the early 2000s, characterized by electronic beats, DJ shoutouts, and showy dance moves — the name roughly translates to "cut and run" in reference to the genre's flashy, playful attitude. It swept Francophone Africa from Senegal to the Congo and influenced Afrobeats production throughout the 2010s, with DJ Arafat becoming its most celebrated star before his death in 2019. Coupé-décalé remains the dominant dance music genre of Ivory Coast and its diaspora.

Afrobeats drill is a 2020s hybrid genre that blends Chicago-UK drill's menacing 808 basslines and trap hi-hats with Afrobeats melodic sensibility and West African Pidgin English lyrics, pioneered by Nigerian artists including Lil Kesh, Olamide, and UK-Nigerian acts like Headie One and Unknown T. The genre has crossed over significantly in the UK, where it sits at the intersection of the thriving British drill scene and the Afrobeats diaspora. Its popularity reflects the cultural power of Nigerian youth in shaping global youth music in the 2020s.

Benga is Kenya's original electric guitar music, developed by Luo musicians in Nairobi in the 1940s and 1950s and reaching its commercial peak in the 1970s and 1980s with artists such as D.O. Misiani, Fadhili William, and Daniel Owino Misiani. Built on the Luo nyatiti lyre tradition translated to electric guitar, benga's intricate fingerpicking patterns and warm, overlapping guitar lines influenced guitar music across East and Central Africa. It is considered the ancestor of modern Kenyan pop and is experiencing a global revival among world music enthusiasts and musicians in Europe and Japan.