The Sound, the Culture, and the Nigerian Irony

The narrative of Afrobeats’ globalization often revolves around Nigeria’s “Big Three” Wizkid, Davido, and Burna Boy, along with the “New Guards”: Rema, Tems, Asake, Ayra Starr, and their individual successes. But why is that?  

Why does the story of Afrobeats’ global rise feel so tightly tethered to individuals rather than institutions? Why does the world know the stars but not the system that exists behind them?  

“Our culture has not been exported; it is individuals that have been exported,” Donawon, Tems’ manager, said in an interview with Afrobeats Intelligence.  

And that is true if you think about it.  

It’s easy to mistake visibility for progress. Yes, Wizkid sold out the O2 three times. Yes, Burna Boy is selling out stadiums. Yet, Afro Nation, the largest global festival dedicated to celebrating Afrobeats and Black music, still can’t come to Nigeria, the very birthplace of the genre. Yet up until now, there are no strong institutional frameworks. Hell, our most prestigious awards show, The Headies, can’t even get our own artists to show up. These contradictions say everything. Personal milestones are not the same as systemic cultural progress.  

Firstly and fundamentally, for a Tems Grammy win or any international award to truly mean something for Afrobeats as a collective cultural force, we first have to ask: What is Afrobeats, really?  

For years, Afrobeats has been defined as a fusion; a rhythmic blend of highlife, hip-hop, dancehall, Fuji, R&B, and now even amapiano. However, this fluidity, while beautiful, has left the genre with no clear boundaries. If we can’t define it, how can we fully own it? That’s why we’re stuck in embarrassing debates: Is Tyla Afrobeats? Is she pop? Is she amapiano? These questions linger because we haven’t secured the genre’s foundation. Even the most successful artists often defer to vague definitions or fall back on “Fela’s legacy,” as if that alone is enough to anchor a movement that has long outgrown one man’s name.  

This lack of clarity weakens our cultural claim, especially as the sound spreads and morphs under foreign influence. Without an internal consensus on what Afrobeats is, everything feels fleeting, fragile, and up for grabs.  

And that’s just the sound.  

The bigger issue and the most vital is the ecosystem, or the lack of it. Nigeria, despite being the cultural and spiritual home of Afrobeats, remains a challenging place to sustain a creative career, as we all know. We shouldn’t conflate the rise of a few stars with the rise of an entire movement; some whose success may not stem from a functioning Nigerian music ecosystem but rather from foreign investment, global co-signs, and sheer personal resilience. Or perhaps they’re just exceptions: in spite of the system, they still thrive. But one thing about exceptions: they’re proof that the system doesn’t work, not that it does.  

How can a country plagued by abject poverty, infrastructural rot, and government negligence be leading one of the world’s most influential cultural exports? The irony is staggering. Nigeria is a paradox: capable of brilliance in pockets, yet consistently dysfunctional at scale. From sports to education to the creative arts, the pattern remains the same: excellence blooms, despite, not because of, the system.

And even when success happens, the people who benefit from it often become detached from their roots. A number of artists who’ve “made it” now start to charge exorbitant fees, in dollars, to perform at home. Many rarely do at all. Why? Because most local promoters, venues, and fans simply can’t afford them anymore. That’s not necessarily arrogance: though it’s still up for debate. It could just as easily be a symptom of a system that has failed to nurture its artists or build a sustainable domestic performance economy. In this structure, success becomes export only by design, hence what we have at hand now.

If Afro Nation, as I pointed out as a case study, the world’s biggest Afrobeats festival can’t come home; if the birthplace of Afrobeats can’t even host its own party, but Ghana, Portugal, and other nations can reap the economic and cultural benefits, then what does that say?  

If up until now we have no reliable data and charting systems, no scalable artist development structures, and our artists time and again lose all sense of progress, stuck in a constant “I must make it now or never” mentality; abandoning local development to chase Billboard charts and Hot 100 entries; then we are surely biting off more than we can chew.  

This isn’t to dismiss the genius of Nigerian creatives or the cultural power of the music. But it is a truth that in Nigeria, every good idea is met with bureaucracy, corruption, exploitation, or plain “anyhowness.” There are countless examples of the industry shooting itself in the foot.  

So again, what do we really mean when we say “Afrobeats to the World”?  

Is it a movement, or just a miracle pulled off by the few who managed to dodge the traps laid by a broken system?