With Afrobeats concerts growing at a massive rate in the United States, Boardroom sits down with Live Nation’s Cindy Agi-Williams to talk about the rise of the genre, its proximity to hip-hop and R&B, and more.
It’s impossible to imagine modern music without reflecting on the contributions of Afrobeats. A genre that originated in West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana, the Afrobeat sound was first pioneered by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in 1963. It wouldn’t be until his recordings in the 1970s that he would expose a larger audience to the blended sounds of highlife, funk, jazz, and traditional African rhythms with politically charged lyrics.
Afrobeats (with an ‘s’) evolved in the 2000s as a more contemporary, dance-friendly project. Artists like Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, D’banj, Wizkid, Burna Boy, and Davido helped shape the sound, incorporating elements of hip-hop, dancehall, and R&B to create infectious, rhythmic music that resonated across the world’s second-largest continent. Today, Afrobeats has not only dominated charts in Africa but has also had a profound influence on Western pop and hip-hop, with collaborations between African and global artists becoming increasingly common.
Data obtained from Live Nation shows the number of Afrobeats concerts in the U.S. grew by 400% from 2023 to 2024. Thanks to social media, music discovery is soaring, allowing new artists to emerge more quickly than ever before. Nigerian artist Burna Boy became the first Afrobeats artist to headline a U.S. stadium, with a show at Citi Field in July 2023. He also played BMO Stadium in Los Angeles last year on the I Told Them…Tour. During Asake’s Lungu Boy World Tour last year, he performed in renowned venues, including Madison Square Garden for the first time, selling out one of the biggest rooms of his career.
With Afrobeats holding a permanent spot in millions of playlists, a new style has emerged: Amapiano. In October 2023, Tyla‘s “Water,” a fusion of Afrobeats and Amapiano, became the first song by a South African solo artist to enter the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 55 years, reaching the top 10 in multiple countries. Originating in Tyla’s birth country of South Africa, it has become one of the fastest-growing genres in global music today, with Tyla and Uncle Waffles featured on mainstream music festival lineups worldwide. Amapiano’s presence on Spotify has surged dramatically. In 2020, the genre amassed its first 100 million streams. By mid-2024, this figure had escalated to 855 million streams, marking a 153% increase in international exposure between 2014 and 2024.
Discussing the ascent of Afrobeats from the live show perspective, I spoke with Cindy Agi-Williams, Global Tour Promoter at Live Nation. As two West Africans, we discussed a mutual appreciation for the work at a young age, its proximity to hip-hop and R&B, and how she keeps her finger on the pulse of who the next global superstar in the space is.
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VINCIANE NGOMSI: Do you have a strong connection to Afrobeats, and if so, where did it come from?
CINDY AGI: I’m Nigerian. My parents were born and raised in Nigeria, making me first generation. So it’s natural that I would be into Afrobeats because my origins are there, and I was raised going there very often. So I’ve always obviously heard it with my parents playing African music, going to parties or weddings. I wouldn’t call it Afrobeats then, but just typical African music. It’s evolved into Afrobeats, you could say, but African music has always been in my life, even as a child.
VN: For those who weren’t like us and grew up on the music, why do you think so many people are now getting introduced to the genre?
CA: I think Americans did a great job of gravitating toward Caribbean music, and when you hear Afrobeats music, there is some Caribbean influence. But I do think Caribbean music was also influenced by African music. So I think there’s just a natural connection I would say as a non-African, when you listen to some of these artists, you hear what they feel like is Caribbean influence. I think with Americans, it’s easy to kind of just get into the Caribbean-African flow. There’s the often comparison with Rihanna and Tems, for example, which are completely different cultures. But there’s a comparison there, and they work together all the time. So, I think as American people gravitate and connect with Caribbean music, that in turn has helped the rise of Afrobeats.
VN: There are also significant artists in the hip-hop space who have been featured on Afrobeats tracks like Future and Drake. On the pop side, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have also lent their talents to some Afrobeats singles. Naturally, there is a debate that comes up of whether we should keep it to ourselves, reserved for those who are straight African and grew up on it, or we should allow other people to really appreciate that culture as well. Do you think that it even matters?
CA: I don’t think that we as Africans should gate-keep African music. African music is worldly music. I think that the collaborations are great, and it’s bringing new people. There are definitely people who are Selena Gomez fans who had never heard of Rema and who are now Rema fans. Those people might even be people who love pop or R&B music, and they just like Selena Gomez. So I don’t like the feeling of gatekeeping, but I will say this about African artists: a lot of these artists — Tems, Burna Boy, Wizkid — yes, they’ll do “Essence.” But if you listen to the album, they’ll also do songs that are more tailored to the African audience.
VN: Specific to your role at Live Nation as a global tour promoter, you’ve been able to, I’m assuming, a lot of these shows featuring those aforementioned artists. What’s the No. 1 thing you’ve seen that really shows there’s a mainstream acceptance of Afrobeats music?
CA: I think you could say the crowd sizes. We’re not just in the small clubs anymore, we are in the arenas, we’re in the stadium. Ticket sales don’t care what genre you are. If you’re able to sell out the Crypto.com Arena, they don’t care if it’s country music, rap music, R&B, Afrobeats. I think numbers just don’t lie, and I think the African audience and African music have been able to sell out these arenas, and a lot of them are now getting stadiums, so I think seeing that shows African music is very much global.
VN: In your specific role, how have you been able to keep your finger on the pulse of growing interest in the genre?
CA: Listen where I can, I have a great tour director Seun Babalola. He’s Nigerian, works with me, and he’s also putting me on to new music. I go to Nigeria. I obviously have my family, friends, the same way you would track any other genre of music. You navigate to Apple or Spotify, and then you go to top new music in Nigeria, Ghana, or South Africa, and you just listen to what you like. You start to see traction. And that could be just even on social media, you start to see someone, everyone’s posting a song on their Instagram Story or sending it to you, maybe even before it comes out. Maybe a label says to you, ‘Hey, we have this new African artist we’re really going to push, take a listen. It can come from anywhere.
VN: Is there truth to the idea that African artists need to sell out stadiums to prove this is a global affair, or does playing intimate stages suffice?
CA: Well, I think a lot of artists’ goal is to get to stadiums no matter the genre, but sometimes even if you’re in a stadium act, you might still want to play a small stage because of whatever reason. There are artists who are stadium acts, and you see them only do multiple arenas. Because they’ll say, ‘Oh, you know what? I don’t like the feel of stadiums. I like the feel of arenas.’ So it depends on the artist. Some artists just want to, or they have intimate shows, they could be as small, they could have stage fright, or they just don’t like the way their music sounds in an arena. They’re like, ‘You know what? I want to do smaller shows.’ I think we assume the goal is for everybody to get to stadiums for sure, but ultimately, it’s the artist’s choice on how they want people to digest their music in what setting.
VN: From when you first discover an artist until you see them perform on the big stage, what’s the best part of your job?
CA: I think something I do enjoy is getting in earlier with an artist and watching them grow in venues while doing the right steps. There’s a satisfying feeling of working with someone and then watching them continue to grow.
VN: Is there a reality where we merge the Afrobeats with Hip-hop and R&B, or does it make more sense to keep them separate to allow both elements to shine?
CA: I don’t like the ‘keep it separate’ narrative. I really like the combination where it fits. Afrobeats, at times, is R&B music, depending on how you hear it. I think Tems does a great job of riding both the R&B and Afrobeats wave, depending on who hears it. If you’re an African, you might hear and think, ‘Oh, this is just complete Afrobeats, but as maybe an American, you’re like, this is R&B. I like the idea of combining the two when it’s appropriate and when it makes sense.
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