Best Afrobeats Songs
Afrobeats, with the s, is the Nigerian and Ghanaian pop sound of the last fifteen years: log drum patterns, off-grid percussion, pidgin hooks and a tempo that never quite settles. Wizkid's "Essence", Burna Boy's "Ye" and Rema's "Calm Down" are the records that took it worldwide.
Not to be confused with Fela Kuti's Afrobeat, which is an older and entirely different genre. The section below explains the split, because it is the most common mistake made about this music.
If you only play one
Wizkid - Essence (2020)
The record that took the sound worldwide without changing anything about it. Start here and the rest of the list makes sense.
Filter
Clean and explicit are Spotify's own markings on the track, not our judgement, so the flag matches what a school or club system will see.
- 01
Wizkid - Essence
2020
The first Nigerian song to chart in the US Hot 100 without a remix carrying it. The bassline sits so far back in the mix that the vocals have to do the rhythm work.
Clean - 02
Burna Boy - Ye
2018
Went global by accident after Kanye named an album the same thing. Deserved it anyway: the horn line and the guitar are pulled straight from his grandfather's generation of highlife.
Explicit - 03
Rema - Calm Down
2022
The biggest Afrobeats record ever released, helped by a Selena Gomez remix but built on an original that needed no help. The melody never repeats the same way twice.
Clean - 04
Asake - Sungba (Remix)
2022
Amapiano log drums and Yoruba fuji choral vocals in the same track. Asake stacks his own voice into a choir rather than hiring one, and Burna Boy arrives on the remix that made it a hit.
Clean - 05
Davido - Fall
2017
The longest-charting Nigerian pop song in Billboard history and the record that proved the genre could travel without changing anything for foreign ears.
Clean - 06
Tems - Free Mind
2020
Barely Afrobeats at all, which is why it matters. The genre had room for a slow, low, almost jazz vocal, and Tems found it before anyone else looked.
Clean - 07
CKay - Love Nwantiti
2019
Two years old before TikTok made it the most Shazamed song on earth. Proof the international pathway for this music runs through short video, not radio.
Explicit - 08
Fireboy DML - Peru
2021
Written as an album filler and became the biggest Nigerian export of its year. The Ed Sheeran remix followed the success rather than causing it.
Explicit - 09
Ayra Starr - Rush
2022
The clearest example of the amapiano influence arriving from South Africa and being absorbed whole. The percussion is Johannesburg, the melody is Lagos.
Clean - 10
Mr Eazi - Leg Over
2017
Banku music: the Ghanaian highlife and Nigerian chord progression hybrid Mr Eazi named himself. The most relaxed record on this list by a distance.
Clean - 11
D'banj - Oliver Twist
2011
The first Afrobeats record to reach the UK top ten, produced by Don Jazzy. Everything the genre later did internationally starts with this song's chart run.
Explicit - 12
Yemi Alade - Johnny
2013
Over a hundred million views from an era when Nigerian pop had no international distribution at all. It travelled on YouTube alone, which was unheard of.
Clean - 13
Omah Lay - Godly
2020
Afro-fusion at its most melancholy. The drums are celebratory and the lyric is not, and the tension between them is the whole record.
Clean - 14
Sarkodie - Adonai (Remix)
2014
The Ghanaian half of the story, rapped almost entirely in Twi. The Castro feature is the version everyone knows, and Castro disappeared at sea two months after it came out.
Clean - 15
Tiwa Savage - Koroba
2020
The most straightforwardly confrontational lyric here, delivered over the softest production. Tiwa Savage opened the door most of the women on this list walked through.
Clean
Settle it properly
Lists are one person's opinion. Put the same question to your friends instead. Everyone submits their answer to
"Best Song From Nigeria"
and the room votes blind on whose pick was best. Free, no account, about four minutes.
Start the BattleAfrobeats is not Afrobeat
Afrobeat, singular, is Fela Kuti's genre: long-form Nigerian funk with jazz horns, political lyrics and tracks that run past fifteen minutes. It was invented in the late 1960s and its structure is closer to James Brown than to pop.
Afrobeats, plural, is a marketing term coined in London around 2011 to describe the Nigerian and Ghanaian pop being played in diaspora clubs. It borrows from highlife, dancehall, hip-hop and now amapiano, and its songs run three minutes.
The two are related the way soul and neo-soul are related, which is to say by lineage rather than by sound. Calling Burna Boy an Afrobeat artist is not quite wrong, since he leans on that tradition more than most, but the genre he charts in is the other one.
Why it travels
The rhythm is the reason. Afrobeats percussion sits deliberately off the grid, so the groove pulls slightly against the beat rather than landing on it, and that pull works on a dancefloor regardless of what language the hook is in.
Distribution did the rest. This is the first genre to reach global scale without traditional radio: YouTube through the 2010s, then TikTok, which is how a two-year-old CKay album track became the most Shazamed song in the world.
The collaborations came after the fact, not before. Drake, Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran all arrived once these records were already large, which is the opposite of how most regional scenes have been exported.
Best Afrobeats Songs, answered
What is the difference between Afrobeat and Afrobeats?
Afrobeat is Fela Kuti's late-1960s Nigerian genre: long, horn-driven political funk. Afrobeats is contemporary Nigerian and Ghanaian pop, a term coined in London around 2011. Same lineage, different music, and the s matters.
What is the biggest Afrobeats song?
Rema's "Calm Down" (2022) is the most streamed by a wide margin. Wizkid and Tems's "Essence" (2020) is the more historically significant record, as the first Nigerian song to chart in the US on its own terms.
Which country is Afrobeats from?
Primarily Nigeria, with Ghana as the other founding scene. The name itself was coined in the UK by a London DJ describing the West African pop being played in diaspora clubs, which is why the genre had an international framing from the start.
More lists like this
This list came from our World prompts. Browse all song lists or the full prompt library.
New to this? Start with what an aux battle is, then the full aux battle rules. Browse the full category list when this one has run its course, and see auxwars if that is the name you searched. Or skip ahead to a list of pure hype songs.