Culture
What Afrobeat means now
A genre label stretched across four decades — and why the next generation keeps redrawing it.
Boy Yana1 min read
The word has carried horns and protest, then dance floors, then streaming charts. It has room for all of it, which is exactly why the arguments never end.
The through line
Whatever the tempo, the music is built on conversation: drums answering horns, a crowd answering a singer. Lose that and you have something else, however good it sounds.
“You cannot make this music alone in a bedroom. You can start it there, but it finishes in a room full of people.”
Artist
Boy Yana
Afrobeat artist from Lagos. Writing from the studio, the road and everywhere in between.
