₦airaland Forum

With an eye on its international fan base, the N.B.A. has welcomed the influence of African singers like Tems, Burna Boy and Rema.

A winter afternoon in Salt Lake City might be the last setting where you’d expect to find a celebration of Afrobeats, a musical meshing of West African rhythms and styles. But in Utah in 2023, a medley by the Nigerian singers Tems, Burna Boy and Rema at halftime of the N.B.A. All-Star Game showed that American sports leagues were embracing the genre.

“I was just so proud to see our own playing on that stage,” said Masai Ujiri, then the president of the Toronto Raptors, who was raised in Nigeria and takes dance lessons to the music about once a week.

Afrobeats had been part of track and field and soccer culture by that point, but its influence on the sports world has only grown since.

This summer, Burna Boy’s hit single “Don’t Let Me Drown” was featured on the soundtrack of the racing blockbuster “F1: The Movie” and Tems performed at halftime at an international soccer final. Tyla, who is South African and incorporates Afrobeats into her music, has signed an endorsement deal with Nike. Aya Nakamura, a French Malian singer with Afrobeats influences, was part of the opening ceremony of last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris.

Music executives, athletes and artists are pointing to the Latin star Bad Bunny’s upcoming Super Bowl halftime performance as a template that Afrobeats could follow.

“There just needs to be more familiarity and visibility and more great songs, more work,” said Tunji Balogun, the chief executive of Def Jam Recordings. “It’s going take time. But I do think it’ll happen eventually.”

Afrobeats is a 21st-century amalgamation of Nigerian and Ghanaian styles that is distinct from the jazz-, soul- and funk-influenced Afrobeat genre of the 1960s. It entered the American mainstream in the 2010s.

Drake collaborated with the Nigerian artist Wizkid on the song “One Dance” in 2016, and Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran have also been featured on Afrobeats songs. Burna Boy performed at the Grammy Awards last year, and releases by Burna Boy, Tems and Davido have been commercial successes.

“All of these artists can sell out tours in America and tour the entire country — 10 years ago that was damn near impossible,” said Balogun, whose parents are Nigerian.

Ebro Darden, an Apple Music radio host, said the current Afrobeats stars have been important ambassadors in an industry where top talent can be selective about public engagements.

“They’ve done the shows, they’ve done the interviews, they care and they don’t take the spotlight for granted,” Darden said.

The inclusion of Afrobeats in the sports world aligns with the international ambitions of several American leagues.

The All-Star Game halftime show was a direct result of the N.B.A.’s having established a 12-team league in Africa about two years earlier, said Carlton Myers, the senior vice president of live production and entertainment for the N.B.A. He said he had heard from colleagues who were on the ground about the excitement that locals demonstrated for the music.

“I was getting a lot of information about how prevalent it was over there and how it was coming our way,” he said.

Afrobeats has been played in arenas during regular-season N.B.A. games, and some of the league’s top stars are avid listeners. Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors guard, has said he is a fan of Burna Boy and Wizkid; Davido performed at the wedding of Joel Embiid, the Cameroonian center who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The N.F.L., which successfully campaigned to add flag football to the 2028 Olympics, is also investing resources in Africa, hosting fan events and camps for potential players in countries such as South Africa and Kenya.

Jesse Luketa, a linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams, balances his football career with rapping and creating Afrobeats music. His mother is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and he speaks English, French and Lingala, a language spoken in Central Africa. As demographics shift, he said, it is natural for Afrobeats to become more visible.

“The game is starting to grow, kids are getting the opportunity to showcase their abilities and change their circumstances, and it’s a beautiful thing,” Luketa said.

Irene Agbontaen, a marketing executive for United Talent Agency, which represents Burna Boy and Tyla, said the appearance of Afrobeats at a Super Bowl was inevitable. She pointed out that despite the growing commercial power of Latin music, that genre has had sparse representation on the Super Bowl stage. (Shakira and Jennifer Lopez performed together in 2020, and Gloria Estefan was involved in the 1992 show.)

“It gives us the understanding of knowing that our time is coming,” she said. “We’re just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/arts/music/afrobeats-nba-nfl.html

As the first to comment, I would say this is a great achievement, an achievement many have longed for, so I will say thanks to my parents, and family, that you Mtn,glo for being there for me, and to my ex girlfriend, who said I will never achieve anything in life as you can see this is the first of many more achievements, and with this can would say the goal of 2025 was achieved , I love you all

we are doing good, Africa is great

Until i enter America na i know say wizkid is the biggest African musician shar🤯 Random white peeps know Wizkid even tho most cant tell hes Nigerian

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Please take a moment to write a quality post with at least 40 characters.
This will make the forum more interesting for everyone.

Ghanaian is not Ghana like this 🤣🤣

All thanks to Fella. Nigeria to the world

Afrobeats has been dominating African music scene it's about time for a complete global dominance

Afrobeats is a movement. next we should fight for our genre recognition in Grammys. Enough of World music shii.. Afrobeat deserve it

They're over their sound, they want something new to vibe to.

NBA really wants to polarize that game in Africa. The association is even sponsoring African founders who have sports-related business ideas with funds. America has too much money!

HighQue007:
Afrobeats is a movement. next we should fight for our genre recognition in Grammys. Enough of World music shii.. Afrobeat deserve it

Grammy wants to have an African version, just like MTV Africa.

I have a natural talent for singing but I refuse to chase it as a career......

SmartPolician:
Grammy wants to have an African version, just like MTV Africa.

Make sense but I don’t think it will be as powerful as giving us our genre on the same stage as the world best. That way someday we go dey contest for RnB and Rap in no time

Some people didn't Cedis Coming.

Boysking1:
Ghanaian is not Ghana like this 🤣🤣

Ghanaians Accra'ing right now 🤣

Kazeem47:
Some people didn't Cedis Coming.

cos they Accra'ing over their big brother dominating

Ghanaians and South Africans go jealous Nigeria more.

I've been seeing some black Americans claiming Nigeria's Afrobeat as theirs and allegedly Nigerians copied it from them, how true is this?

Our Afrobeat musicians are our greatest all time ambassadors and not those supporter of APC of corruption that baba dey pick point up and down....say it loud....

Samantha125:
I've been seeing some black Americans claiming Nigeria's Afrobeat as theirs and allegedly Nigerians copied it from them, how true is this?

If they want to look stupid that's their problem....Afro beat is already well known and will always be known to be from Africa(Nigeria).

You damn know the answer to that babe.....Tell them Incase you are in the States..... THEY ARE LIARS. NIGERIA OWN AFROBEATS....MADE IN NIGERIA FOR NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA, AFRICA AND NOW TO THE WORLD.......

Samantha125:
I've been seeing some black Americans claiming Nigeria's Afrobeat as theirs and allegedly Nigerians copied it from them, how true is this?

Dude, Afrobeat is not even a big genre here in SA, so what are you talking about?

MMempire:
Ghanaians and South Africans go jealous Nigeria more.

saphiere:
All thanks to Fella. Nigeria to the world

Which one be all thanks to Fela? Afrobeats simply means 'African Beats'. Na Fela first sing for Africa?

Apparently Fela Kuti was the one who brought the sound to Nigeria after a brief visit to America.

I'm not based in America.

wallrichy:
You damn know the answer to that babe.....Tell them Incase you are in the States..... THEY ARE LIARS. NIGERIA OWN AFROBEATS....MADE IN NIGERIA FOR NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA, AFRICA AND NOW TO THE WORLD.......

I like your spirit, more like you quickly did a research on the origination of AFROBEATS. Yes, Fela Kuti, the Abami Eda, the mysterious creature pioneered afrobeats in the sixties. He didn't bring Afrobeats to Nigeria from the US, he was the embodiment of Afrobeats himself, an enigma of a man, an oracle of no nations. He was Afrobeats and in him Afrobeats was created and gifted by the Olodumare, the god of our fathers, Olorunwa. He was born into musichood and gravitated into Africanizm music otherwise called Afrobeats. He was so much into africanizm that he fused hip hop, highlife, Yoruba songs and general African freedom songs into one orbit translating into Afrobeats......Yes, he was energized, inspired by the like of the great Martin Luther King and others struggling for the freedom and better living for the black Americans. He was also inspired by the transition of colonialism into Statehood of no conscience in Africa, the soldier boys radicalism of nationhood etc......that's the inception of Afrobeats, then it wasn't a song but a statement of freedom, addressing injustice, hope to the hopeless and an essence and appreciation of being a black person. Fela says that " Music is supposed to have an effect. If you're playing music and people don't feel something, you're not doing shit. That's what African music is about. When you hear something, you must move. I want to move people to dance, but also to think. Music wants to dictate a better life, against a bad life. When you're listening to something that depicts having a better life, and you're not having a better life, it must have an effect on you." Abami Eda say so...... 😂 😂

Samantha125:
Apparently Fela Kuti was the one who brought the sound to Nigeria after a brief visit to America.

I'm not based in America.

wallrichy:
I like your spirit, more like you quickly did a research on the origination of AFROBEATS. Yes, Fela Kuti, the Abami Eda, the mysterious creature pioneered afrobeats in the sixties. He didn't bring Afrobeats to Nigeria from the US, he was the Afrobeats himself, an enigma of a man, an oracle of no nations. He was Afrobeats and in him Afrobeats was created and gifted by the Olodumare, the god of our fathers, Olorunwa. He was so much into africanizm that he fused hip hop, highlife, Yoruba songs and general African freedom songs into one orbit translating into Afrobeats......Yes, he was energized, inspired by the like of the great Martin Luther King and others struggling for the freedom and better living for the black Americans. He was also inspired by the transition of colonialism into Statehood of no conscience in Africa, the soldier boys radicalism of nationhood etc......that's the inception of Afrobeats, then it wasn't a song but a statement of freedom, addressing injustice, hope to the hopeless and an essence and appreciation of being a black person.

The current trend of Afrobeat has nothing to do with Fela Kuti. Yes, Fela is an originator of an Africanized global music genre but the modern day Nigerian song take has no historical ties to his brand. They all started as hip -hop, dubbed Nigerian hip hop in those days. The advent of social media saw witnessed the promotion of song on the platform. Then came streaming which give enhanced popularity to the Afro pop. The global audience who tryto find an identity to the genre,dubbed ut Afro beat

Samantha125:
Apparently Fela Kuti was the one who brought the sound to Nigeria after a brief visit to America.

I'm not based in America.

Afrobeats differs from Afrobeats. Do a little research on both. Mind you, Fela did Afrobeat while contemporary Nigerian artistes are mostly into Afrobeats. I guess Ice Prince coined the word Afrobeats with the release of his hit song, 'Oleku.'

NB: I hope you notice the letter 's' after the music genre being discussed.

Davoneskay:
Afrobeats differs from Afrobeats. Do a little research on both. Mind you, Fela did Afrobeat while contemporary Nigerian artistes are mostly into Afrobeats. I guess Ice Prince coined the word Afrobeats with the release of his hit song, 'Oleku.'

NB: I hope you notice the letter 's' after the music genre being discussed.

you mean Afrobeat differs from Afrobeats.


Oleku is a masterpiece of a song.

hucknall:
you mean Afrobeat differs from Afrobeats.


Oleku is a masterpiece of a song.

Yup, even this post addressed it that they both differ.

thrillionaire:
Ghanaians Accra'ing right now 🤣

hahaha 🤣🤣 Ghanaians cry cry babies