Most Important Moments For Afrobeats In Canada

Afrobeats culture has consumed Africa, and is currently doing an uber job at dominating the entire world; beginning from the United Kingdom, swimming into the United States, and as is our utmost desire – Canada too!

So far, as regards the spread of Afrobeats culture and African music, there have been important highlight moments that helped the sound buy itself even more followers. This article informs you of these such moments and how much effect they had in the scene.

CKay’s ‘Sad Romance’ Tour

The most intriguing thing about CKay’s Toronto concert for this tour is how diverse the crowd was. This turnout was proof of just how much Love Nwantiti had made CKay a global star. The crowd was far more diverse than that of any other African artist we had ever seen in Toronto; the United Nations vibes were so strong, the urge to hold other attendees to start singing We Are the World was very strong. 2Face is not the only one you people should be calling “father of many nations” at this point. CKay is earning that title too and for all the best reasons.

The “One Dance” Summer Of 2016

This song had my people in chains and there was nobody to set us free. Every house party, every club, every single radio station had this song playing constantly that summer. Drake was the spoonful of sugar that sent Afrobeats down the throats of Canadians in a manner that would forever leave them wanting more. One Dance became Spotify’s most played song ever with over a billion individual streams. This was the beginning of a lot of real traction for Afrobeats in Canada.

‘Fountains’ — Drake, Tems

Like clockwork, this Drake boy came again, but this time with Tems baby. This song is already massive and has the Canadian congregation curious about Tems, like everybody else is. It’ll be interesting to see what the overarching impact of this one song will be on the culture of Afrobeats here. Will it spread the gospel of Afrobeats even farther than One Dance did? Will it shackle the people?

Post-Pandemic Clubbing

In many ways, clubs are a barometer for what the people are responding to on the music scene. Afrobeats used to be that thing DJs played at the end of the night when the lights were coming on and they wanted people to start going home. Now, she’s that hot babe they bring out mid set to get the crowd hyped. This change became very apparent post-pandemic. Afrobeats also plays on the radio more often now in the most random public spaces. You almost can’t pass through most malls or clubs without hearing Burna Boy’s voice coming out from somewhere at this point. Now it does bear mentioning that we don’t really follow you people to clubs and parties because some of us are studying hard to make our parents proud. This is all obviously from what people have told us. Our mother reads these things, abeg.

TikTok

In years to come, people will probably study the impact of TikTok on the music industry because it’s clear that for better or worse, this app is causing drastic changes. Some people on the app have mental problems; but even though, even though. TikTok has done wonders for artists like CKay, allowing their music to spread like wildfire into the consciousness of populations that may never have encountered them otherwise. Whatever change TikTok will effect in the African music industry, we have a funny feeling that this is just the beginning.

Photo Credit: Ckay