Following on from Spotify’s recent launch into 39 new African markets, which was announced during the Stream On event on 22 February, the new episode titled “Afropop to Amapiano: African Music Ignites,” takes listeners on a journey across the continent from Nigeria to Kenya, spotlighting the diverse cultures and sounds of a musical hotbed for expanding genres like Amapiano and Gengetone, and popular collaborations between African artists and mainstream Western stars.
The episode features interviews with a roster of African stars, including recent Grammy-winner Burna Boy and fellow Nigerian DaVido, who shares how key collabs with Nas and Nicki Minaj were born in the bathroom and in his DM’s. Also featured is Kenya’s celebrated musician-producer-DJ Blinky Bill, and South African RADAR artist Focalistic, whose track “Ke Star” is gaining worldwide attention. Listeners also hear from Nigeria’s RADAR artist Tems, who reveals how it feels to be featured on President Barack Obama’s playlists and gives a taste of “alté”.
In the podcast, Davido speaks about how he ended up collaborating with Nas: “When I was in L.A., you know, Hit-Boy had a whole studio booked out and apparently him and Nas were working in one of the rooms. I was in the other room working. And then I just had to pee. So, I went to the bathroom and coming out the bathroom I see Nas. I’m like, ‘What??’ And then he chopped it up. And we did our record that same day. Very weird and crazy.”
Hosts Shanon Cook and Kevin Turner, along with Spotify’s Head of Music for Sub-Saharan Africa, Phiona Okumu, also share fascinating new insights into how Spotify listeners around the world are responding to music from Africa, one of the world’s fastest-growing music markets. They unveil some key data points from the first 30 days since Spotify launched in the new sub-Saharan markets, these include that:
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