Africa is the future of electronic music. KMRU, Mikael Seifu, and Gafacci are three artists from the continent leading the charge.
Africa is a big place. The world tends to think of it as a single entity, but it’s a continent, and the second-largest continent on the planet after Asia. That’s why talking about “African music” as a single genre is ludicrous. With 54 countries that stretch from Arabic-speaking ones in the north to South Africa at the bottom, and not to mention all of the different ethnic groups within each country, there are more music styles here than we can comfortably discuss in a single article.
So we won’t try. Instead, we’re going to focus on electronic music, which is rapidly redefining what local music can be. Genres like Afrobeats, Amapiano, Afro House, Nyege Nyege, Gqom, Kuduro, and Singeli are all wildly different and worthy of in-depth exploration. And, with over 60% of Africa’s population under the age of 25, and one in four people in the world projected to be African by the year 2050, you can bet that these genres will only grow in popularity, both locally and around the world.
Here are three artists currently pushing at the boundaries of electronic music who also happen to be from Africa. Listen and get inspired. (For more on African music, please read the interview with Senegalese artist Fakeba in INSPIRE THE MUSIC.)
