At a gathering of artistes, creators and cultural leaders in Lagos, FORBES AFRICA learns that African music’s global rise is not just about being heard, but about deciding, collectively, what is worth saying. 

The bass drops, a familiar South African house rhythm threads through the Lagos heat, and hands reach out, guiding South African musician Sanelisiwe ‘Moonchild Sanelly’ Twisha forward, closer to the DJ stand. Nigeria’s Olawunmi ‘DJ Lambo’ Okerayi catches her eye and laughs mid-set, the music never breaking stride. For a moment, the dance floor becomes a chorus: bodies pressing in, phones raised, voices rising, as if the evening itself is insisting on being remembered. 

Scenes like this are no longer unusual in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, but they still carry a charge.  

This is a gathering of artistes, creators and cultural leaders assembled to celebrate African sound at a moment of unusual global confidence. From noon until nightfall, the music rarely pauses. After Okerayi comes, her Nigerian colleagues Oluseye ‘SPINALL’ Sodamola, and then Obinna ‘DJ Obi’ Ajuonuma, each pulling from different archives—old South African house records dissolving into Nigerian, Ivorian, Ghanaian and other continental classics—collapsing borders, eras and audiences into a single, restless groove. 

What is being celebrated goes beyond the party. African music, once forced to knock politely at the edges of the global industry, now arrives with proof of impact: charts, awards, algorithms. Yet, beneath the ease of the dancing, the artistes here speak of friction—between recognition and meaning, speed and substance, growth and survival. 

Chimamanda ‘Qing Madi’ Chukwuma, the Nigerian singer-songwriter, describes the year in terms of moments when the noise fell away. Her Kenyan concert, she says, and winning Songwriter of the Year at the Headies Awards, were highlights not because of scale, but because they felt like affirmation. “I felt very appreciated for my talent,” she says to FORBES AFRICA. 

That affirmation, however, comes with conditions. Chukwuma says she keeps distance from the business side of music to protect her mental health. “As a creative, the most fundamental part of my creation is my mind,” she says. When commerce presses too close, she worries it can distort confidence and emotional balance. “A creative’s number one priority is making sure their mind is sane.” 

She is grateful for how far Nigerian music has traveled. Artistes from the country are now globally heard, with institutional recognition that once felt implausible. The Grammys’ creation of categories for African music, she says, marks a generational shift. “It’s a blessing to be part of the generation that gets to witness and be part of such groundbreaking things.” 

Still, she is uneasy about what attention demands. Songs are getting shorter, shaped by shrinking attention spans and platform incentives. In chasing virality, she says, meaning often thins out. “We’re not saying anything important enough,” she argues, contrasting today’s output with the socio-conscious traditions of figures like Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti and, more recently, Damini ‘Burna Boy’ Ogulu, both from her country. Mood, she says, has overtaken message. 

Her response has been to insist on storytelling. Music, for her, must speak—about intimate truths, about silenced issues. “Being a storyteller is being a voice for someone who doesn’t feel validated,” she says. Connection, not just consumption, remains her measure of success. 

Although performing elsewhere later the same night, Oludemilade ‘Ycee’ Alejo, the Nigerian rapper, has taken a step back from the spotlight altogether. He has not released music since 2022, making this year appear quiet from the outside. Internally, he describes it as deeply productive. He has been recording, experimenting, preparing work he plans to release next year. “I’ve been on the consumer end,” he says to FORBES AFRICA, watching new talent, studying how the culture is shifting. 

What he sees, he says, is African music moving past the need for Western permission. Afrobeats has grown into a broader movement, one that must be anchored at home, according to him. “You have to connect with Nigerians in Nigeria, Africans in Africa,” he says, before thinking about the diaspora. 

Addy Awofisayo, YouTube’s Head of Music for sub-Saharan Africa, agrees with Alejo. “Nigerians love their own music. They love their culture, they love their artistes and they love amplifying their own sound, so sometimes you would look at another country’s chart and if you look at their top 10 maybe only five of those would be artistes from that country but Nigeria literally every single one is a Nigerian artiste and that just speaks to how they really accept their own artistes, their own sound and their own music. And it starts at home. Once they have accepted it then they can amplify it globally because those same artistes are gaining audiences across the world.” 

Alejo’s own global success, he notes, was also propeled by Nigerians abroad who carried his music into spaces he could not reach alone. The lesson, he says, is to protect cultural specificity. “You can’t rap in an American industry more than an American rapper. Your selling point is your Africanness—the nuance, the originality.” 

That originality, he argues, should not be compromised for scale. Other cultures like the Latin and French, he adds, have proven that global success does not require dilution. But Alejo is equally firm about pragmatism. For him, music is not only passion; it is labor. Artistes must understand contracts, revenue and sustainability. “It’s a profession. You have to take it as seriously as a nine-to-five.” 

The limits of individual effort, he adds, are tied to Nigeria’s broader economy. Without reliable power, internet access and purchasing power, even devoted fans struggle to support artistes fully. Structural growth, he says, would echo quickly through the music industry. 

Platforms increasingly shape that echo. Awofisayo points to a shift in Nigeria’s viewing habits this year. The most-watched music video in the country was not an Afrobeats hit but a gospel song: Akinade ‘Gaise Baba’ Ibuoye’s No Turning Back II, in its remix with Lawrence Oyor, now exceeding 43 million views. 

Its rise, she says, reflects how discovery now works. A remix can revive an original. A gospel track can outrank club anthems. And an artiste, through a single song, can gain a global audience. 

As the night deepens and the music keeps folding time and place into rhythm, the scene that began with Twisha’s unexpected journey to the DJ stand, and subsequently saw Nigerian artiste Sadiq ‘WurlD’ Onifade do the same with Ajuonuma, takes on new meaning. The moment is spontaneous, but not accidental. It captures a culture in motion—dancing, debating, asserting itself—still asking what it wants to sound like, now that the world is finally listening.