The reach of afrobeats has gone from a regional conversation to a global fact. What began as a distinct rhythmic sensibility rooted in Nigerian popular music has expanded into a framework large enough to hold pop, R&B, dancehall, highlife, and amapiano all at once. The artists driving this moment are not waiting to be discovered. They are charting on Billboard, winning Grammys, and selling out stadiums on every continent. If you are just catching up, this is where to start.
Burna Boy
Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, who records as Burna Boy, is the standard by which contemporary afrobeats is measured. Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1991, he built a career over nearly a decade before his fifth studio album Twice as Tall arrived in 2020 and won Best World Music Album at the 63rd Grammy Awards. The album was executive produced by Diddy and debuted at number one on the Billboard World Albums Chart. His fourth album African Giant won Album of the Year at the 2019 All Africa Music Awards and earned his first Grammy nomination. By 2021 he had won Best International Act at the BET Awards three consecutive years in a row, making him the first African artist to hold that record. Spotify named him its number one afrobeats artist globally for 2025. His voice, a low and unhurried instrument, carries authority that sounds earned rather than performed.
Wizkid
Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun, known professionally as Wizkid, released his fourth studio album Made in Lagos in October 2020 and essentially redrew the map of what an African pop record could do internationally. The album peaked at number 28 on the Billboard 200, making it Nigeria's highest charting album on that chart at the time of release. It was also the first African album to debut on the US Spotify Global Albums Chart. The single Essence, featuring Tems, peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 after a remix with Justin Bieber arrived in August 2021, making it the highest charting single on that chart by an African act. Made in Lagos spent 86 weeks on the Billboard World Albums Chart, surpassing any Nigerian project that had come before it. Wizkid has been making records since 2011, and Made in Lagos is the album that made his name impossible to avoid.
Tems
Temilade Openiyi, known as Tems, was born in Lagos on June 11, 1995. She quit a corporate job in 2018 to pursue music full time, and within two years she had appeared on Wizkid's Essence. Her debut studio album Born in the Wild arrived on June 7, 2024, through RCA Records and Since 93. The record spans 18 tracks and features collaborations with J. Cole and Asake, much of it written, produced, and engineered by Tems herself. At the 67th Grammy Awards her song Love Me JeJe won Best African Music Performance, while Born in the Wild received a nomination for Best Global Music Album. She became the first Nigerian artist to hold multiple Grammy Awards. Her approach to songwriting sits somewhere between afrobeats, R&B, and a spacious kind of soul that does not belong to any single tradition.
Rema
Divine Ikubor, who performs as Rema, was born in Benin City, Nigeria, in 2000. His single Calm Down, released in 2022 and followed by a remix with Selena Gomez, became the defining afrobeats crossover moment of the decade so far. The remix peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, reached number one on the Billboard US Afrobeats Songs chart for a record 58 consecutive weeks, and hit number one on the Radio Songs chart for ten weeks. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named it the second best-selling global single of 2023. Rema won the inaugural Best Afrobeats award at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. His 2024 album HEIS moved further into experimental territory, pulling the genre toward hyper-regional textures and a sound more distinctly his own.
Ayra Starr
Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe, known as Ayra Starr, was signed to Mavin Records in 2021 and has moved quickly since. Her second album The Year I Turned 21, released May 31, 2024, became the first afrobeats album to surpass one billion Spotify streams, reaching that milestone in May 2025. The record entered the Billboard 200, making Ayra Starr the first Nigerian artist to have an album debut on that chart. Across its 15 tracks she brings together Afropop, R&B, Latin pop, Jamaican dancehall, Nigerian highlife, and gospel, drawing on the grief of losing her father as the emotional core of the record. She was 21 during the recording process. The album title is not a creative flourish. It is a document.
Asake
Ahmed Ololade, who records as Asake, built one of the most striking catalogues in contemporary Nigerian music in a very short window. His debut album Mr. Money With the Vibe arrived in September 2022 through YBNL Nation and Empire Distribution, debuting at number 22 on the UK Albums Chart and becoming the first Nigerian album to debut on that chart at all. His second album Work of Art followed in June 2023, and three of his records simultaneously held spots in Spotify Nigeria's Top 10 most streamed list. All production on his debut came from a single producer, Magicsticks, giving the record a coherence that felt almost architectural. His style fuses Fuji music, agege street pop, and Yoruba praise traditions in a way that is deeply local and immediately infectious to anyone hearing it for the first time.
Fireboy DML
Adedamola Adefolahan, who performs as Fireboy DML, was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, in 1996. He graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University with a degree in English before signing to YBNL Nation in October 2018. His second album Apollo, released August 20, 2020, received an 8.3 rating from Pitchfork, which called it the peak of his vision so far: a melodious, detailed, and effortless album of feel good pop and R&B. The album won Album of the Year and Best Pop Album at the Headies. A December 2021 remix of his single Peru with Ed Sheeran peaked at number two on the UK Official Singles Chart. His gift is for melody that sounds inevitable, the kind of songwriting that makes a track feel like you already knew it before the first chorus ended.
Davido
David Adeleke, who records as Davido, has been one of the architects of the afrobeats global expansion since his debut in 2011. His fourth studio album Timeless, released March 31, 2023, moved across amapiano, dancehall, ragga, highlife, and Afropop across 17 tracks. It became the fastest album in Boomplay history to surpass 10 million streams, doing so within one day of release, and set the record for the highest number of first-day album sales by an African artist with over one million copies sold. The record received a Grammy nomination for Best Global Music Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. Where some artists in this space are still finding their audience, Davido has been shaping one for over a decade.
Why These Eight Artists Matter
Afrobeats is not a trend with an expiration date. It is a musical language built on rhythmic precision, emotional directness, and a production vocabulary that keeps expanding. The eight artists here represent different corners of that language: the veterans who built credibility over years, the generation that turned crossover moments into sustained careers, and the newer voices whose ambitions are already outpacing expectation. There is no single entry point and no wrong place to start. Pick one record and follow it back.
