Tag: Cruel Santino

The Visual Rhythm: How Afrobeats Is Shaping Global Style

September 22, 2025

On November 14, 2023, at London’s O2 Arena, Rema made an unforgettable entrance. Stadiumgoers held their collective breath as he rode onto the stage on a black horse prop cloaked in a billowing cape, his face obscured by a striking mask representing Queen Idia. This imagery paid homage to Rema’s Benin roots, carving out a moment for his culture on a global platform and captivating his audience in the process.

The impact of his performance rippled far beyond the stage. It sparked a global conversation about the power of Afrobeats as a medium for cultural expression, ushering the genre into a new era where visual art and historical storytelling are as crucial as the music. Rema’s bold display is part of a larger trend that has seen Afrobeats evolve from a musical genre into a full-fledged global visual movement over the last five years.

The rise of cinematic storytelling

Artists are now harnessing every visual they can to tell the stories of where they’re from. We see this in the cinematic approach of Cruel Santino and Yemi Alade, who tap into the rich Nollywood aesthetic, fusing its unique style with modern storytelling. Santino’s music videos, for example, often resemble short films and draw inspiration from Nigerian folklore. Videos for tracks like “Raw Dinner” or “4Ever” borrow shots from the style of horror and action films, offering a captivating glimpse into the experience of being a young Nigerian today.

In contrast, Yemi Alade embodies a more dramatic and colorful approach. Her video for “Deceive” begins with a Nollywood-style scene complete with a full cast of actors spelling out a relationship drama. In “Shekere,” featuring the legendary Angelique Kidjo, her imagery is a vibrant celebration of African spirituality. Both artists are adorned in intricate traditional hairstyles, body paint, and rich fabrics, creating a visual tribute to ancestral wisdom and feminine strength. Videos like these add a new layer of depth to the genre’s stories by celebrating Nigeria’s visual legacy.

Emerging artists like Kold AF forge personal connections with their audiences by highlighting specific cultural elements. Kold AF’s visual aesthetic is an extension of her persona: She states, “My aesthetic isn’t curated, it’s what I love, from my dark colors to my dreadlocks, which I see as my crown.” In her “Manyana” music video, she dons simple, elegant black and white pieces that show her as she is. And hair-braiding scenes with friends both match the song’s relaxed energy and reflect ordinary communal traditions of life in the Delta. This shows how her style and music are deeply connected, telling a cohesive, authentic story that is a direct reflection of her identity.

Fashion as a cultural statement

Afrobeats’ influence goes beyond music, making it a global force shaping style and fashion. It was once rare to see Afrobeats artists on the red carpet, but in the 2020s, they’ve created memorable moments. From Tems’s viral Oscars dress to her wax print look by Ozwald Boateng at the 2025 Met Gala and Burna Boy‘s appearance at the Met Gala in Burberry, the style exuded by Afrobeats artists is changing how the world sees West African fashion: less about textiles and more about cultural exchange and growing influence. 

Asake embodies this shift as his style becomes more luxurious, with collaborations that have seen him show at the Jacquemus show during Paris Fashion Week. With high-profile artists’ representing African and diasporic fashion on the global stage, Afrobeats shows its power as a cultural force where style is as celebrated as the music.

Clothing has also become a powerful statement of identity in the 2020s. Odumodublvck’s signature red hat, the traditional Igbo okpu agu, serves as a powerful symbol of bravery and leadership and encourages his young fans to connect with their cultural roots. Similarly, Asake’s visual identity is driven by his bold, nonconformist style. His fashion, from the iconic pink Agbada-style suit in the “Joha” video to his looks in “Sungba (Remix),” is a form of visual storytelling that blends indigenous Nigerian culture with a modern, cutting-edge aesthetic.

A platform for African creatives

“Music can’t exist without fashion,” says leading West African stylist Swazzi. He adds that “fashion plays a big role in interpreting good stories in Afrobeats music videos” and highlights the importance of style to the genre’s visual narratives. “I always try to include made-in-Africa designs,” he says, explaining why he champions local talent. “African designers are the future; the global audience needs to see a lot more.”

The genre is a vital route for African designers to reach a global audience, with musicians and fashion houses forming powerful partnerships that elevate both industries. West African textiles and distinctive designs are brought into the global spotlight, with artists’ being the driving force behind how African creativity influences the international stage. For example, Burna Boy’s “Twice As Tall” tour featured stunning costumes by Nigerian fashion house Tokyo James. Artists including Davido and Zlatan are moving beyond simple tour merchandise to create full-on, well-designed clothing collections that are taken seriously as fashion.

Throughout this decade, Afrobeats has moved far beyond the flossy, bling-heavy aesthetic of the past. Using meticulously crafted visuals, intentional fashion choices, and strategic collaborations, this new generation of artists has become a potent cultural force. They are actively showcasing the richness, diversity, and dynamism of African identity to the world. As the genre continues its global ascent, its influence on African culture is set to grow even further, promising an even richer fabric of visual storytelling for years to come.

Visit our full Afrobeats 2.0 experience on For the Record to discover more.

From the Dance Floor to Daydreams: How Afrobeats Found Its Soul

September 22, 2025

The silence came first. In the spring of 2020, as the world locked its doors, the exuberant, continent-spanning pulse of Afrobeats suddenly had nowhere to go. Dance floors emptied. Festivals fell quiet. For a genre built on collective motion and kinetic joy, the stillness felt like a fade to black.

But the beat didn’t stop. It evolved. The tempos began to drift downward, the bass lines softened their punch, and melodies made room for a melancholic hum. In that quiet, a more complicated and resonant sound emerged—one that carried not just celebration, but longing, vulnerability, and the intricate truths that surface between life’s highs and lows.

Today, Afrobeats is no longer a monolith of feel-good anthems. It has blossomed into a genre of profound emotional range, capable of igniting a stadium one night and soundtracking a solitary evening the next. Its contemporary power lies in this very duality: a seamless glide between euphoric rhythm and thoughtful introspection. This is the story of how the party got personal.

This sonic maturation wasn’t an overnight revolution, but a deliberate shedding of expectations led by a generation of artists who saw no contradiction between the clubs and the house parties.

From golden age to alté wave

To understand the shift, one must recall the genre’s golden age in the late 2000s. It was a time of unapologetic opulence, when titans like D’banj, P-Square, and a rising Wizkid crafted a soundtrack of joyous, stylish, and gloriously loud maximalism. Songs like Wizkid’s “Holla at Your Boy” or Wande Coal’s “Bumper to Bumper” were sonic champagne, all booming beats and irresistible hooks that felt like pure celebration.

But even as Afrobeats began its global conquest, a countercurrent was forming. By the mid-2010s, a subtle deceleration had begun. Burna Boy’s early work, like the languid “Like to Party,” and Mr Eazi’s signature, minimalist “Banku music” on tracks like “Skin Tight” introduced a lower tempo and a more intimate, conversational feel. These slower tracks began to redefine the genre’s very identity. Spotify data mirrors this gradual slowing. In 2015, the average Afrobeats track clocked in at a brisk 119 beats per minute (BPM). By 2025, that average had cooled to 114 BPM, a seemingly small change that created significant space for new moods.

Then came the alté wave, an avant-garde movement that challenged every remaining convention. Led by artists like Odunsi (The Engine), Cruel Santino, and Lady Donli, this subgenre was an ethos as much as a sound. Blending R&B, funk, lo-fi, and indie rock with a heavy dose of nostalgia, alté artists rejected rigid formulas in favor of radical self-expression. Their success—Spotify streams of alté music surged by more than 670% since 2020—didn’t just create a new lane; it blew the doors open for the mainstream, signalling that creative risk was rewarded.

Slowing soul tempos

That spirit of fusion has since defined the 2020s. A vibrant ecosystem of subgenres has taken root, each expanding the genre’s sonic and emotional palette. Artists like Rema and Fireboy DML weave soul and pop into their Afrobeats frameworks on tracks that explore heartbreak and uncertainty, their plaintive vocals gliding over propulsive rhythms. From South Africa, Afropiano introduced amapiano’s hypnotic bass lines and sprawling textures, its streams exploding by more than 11,000% since 2020. Meanwhile, the prayerful, spiritual themes of Afro Adura have resonated profoundly, with its listenership rising by more than 40,000% in the same period.

The genre’s biggest contemporary hits tell the same story of deceleration. Burna Boy’s Grammy-winning “Last Last,” a masterpiece of joyous melancholy, cruises at a relaxed 88 BPM. Oxlade’s global smash “KU LO SA” sways at 93 BPM. Even Rema’s “Calm Down,” one of the most-streamed Afrobeats songs in history, sits at a relatively modest 107 BPM.

Listening habits reflect a clear appetite for this new emotionality. In Nigeria, Spotify data shows that the most-streamed mood category is “whiny,” which is characterized by expressive, emotionally charged vocals, accounting for 35% of streams. Globally, that number climbs to 38%, proving that this vulnerability is a universal language.

This is more than a musical trend; it’s a generational shift in storytelling. Younger African artists, more open about mental health, loss, and the anxieties of modern life, are channeling that complexity into their music. It’s why the Afrobeats of today can soundtrack a wedding, a breakup, and a meditation session with equal authenticity. Contrast the raw, suffocating heartbreak in Llona’s “Can’t Breathe” with the defiant self-assurance of Ayra Starr’s “Rush.” Both are essential, and both are Afrobeats.

This newfound duality is the genre’s greatest strength. In the hands of its current vanguard, Afrobeats has learned to hold space for both silence and celebration. As CKay’s “Love Nwantiti” proved to the world, longing can be a global anthem. As Omah Lay captured on “Soso,” emotional fatigue can be rendered with breathtaking beauty. And as Tems demonstrated on “Free Mind,” the search for inner peace can be a collective experience.

Afrobeats has matured, embracing its own beautiful contradictions. It’s no longer just the sound of the party. It’s the sound of the human experience. Its power, now, lies not in how loudly it’s played, but in how deeply it resonates. And that is a rhythm destined to last.

Visit our full Afrobeats 2.0 experience on For the Record to discover more.