The Best Afrobeats Songs of the 2020s

The song that finally put a Nigerian record on the Billboard Hot 100 — Essence, cut for Made in Lagos in 2020 with P2J co-producing, climbed to number nine after Justin Bieber's August 2021 remix. Tems owns it: she sings the opening hook before Wizkid even appears, and the track idles at a temperature most pop never risks. The original album version is linked here, not the remix.

Streaming numbers say Calm Down is the biggest afrobeats song ever recorded — the Selena Gomez remix reached number three on the Hot 100 and led Billboard's US Afrobeats chart for 58 weeks. It starts on a dry guitar loop from producers Andre Vibez and London, and Rema's melody never leaves it alone. Linked here is the original solo version from Rave & Roses, though the remix is honestly how most of the world met it.

Chopstix and the Off & Out team built the beat by pitching up Toni Braxton's He Wasn't Man Enough and looping her voice into a wail that answers every line Burna Boy sings. Last Last hit number three on the Billboard Global 200 and topped the US Afrobeats Songs chart in 2022 — a breakup record, igbo and shayo as heartbreak medicine, that turned a public split into the year's biggest singalong.

Log drums put Water on the amapiano side of the border, and it stays on this list anyway — this is the record that carried the sound worldwide inside a pop-R&B shell Tyla calls popiano. Sammy Soso produced it; it reached number seven on the Hot 100 and won the first-ever Grammy for Best African Music Performance in 2024. The shaker-and-log-drum drop under the chorus is the whole argument.

Nobody sounds less hurried over a fast beat. Ayra Starr keeps her voice low and conversational while Rush skips underneath, produced by Hoops and Andre Vibez for the deluxe edition of 19 & Dangerous in 2022. It earned her first Grammy nomination, for Best African Music Performance, and went Diamond in France — which tells you where afrobeats' second-biggest audience lives.

Fireboy DML cut Peru with producer Shizzi in July 2021 and the hook barely counts as words — the title repeated in a woozy, pitch-bent slur that sounds improvised because it mostly was. Ed Sheeran's December 2021 remix took it to number two in the UK; the solo original linked here is looser and better, all air and swagger.

Tems produced Free Mind herself and put it out on her own Leading Vibe label in September 2020, on the For Broken Ears EP. Two years later it became her first solo entry on the Hot 100, American radio finally catching up to a slow-rolling prayer of a record. The drums stay soft the whole way through; her stacked harmonies do all the lifting.

For a stretch of May 2022, Buga (Lo Lo Lo) was the most Shazamed song in the world. Kizz Daniel and Tekno ride a Reward Beatz co-production that withholds its horn-like synth riff until the drop, then lets the drums fall to half-time under the buga won chant so every dancefloor knows exactly what to do.

The first line is the whole song: Libianca admitting how much she has been drinking, in a flat, unaccompanied voice, before the beat arrives. Written out of the Cameroonian-American singer's experience with depression and released in December 2022, People reached number one in New Zealand and number two in the UK and Ireland — the quietest record on this list travelled the furthest.

Every track on Mr. Money with the Vibe came from producer Magicsticks, and Organise is their blueprint: amapiano log drums — flagged, since Asake works that border constantly — under stacked choir vocals that turn street-pop bragging into congregation. The parent album entered the UK Albums Chart at 22 in September 2022, the first Nigerian album to debut on that chart.

Sarz won Producer of the Year at the 2022 Headies for Monalisa, and earned it by subtraction — the middle of the mix sits empty so Lojay's runs on the hook have nowhere to hide. It comes from their joint 2021 EP LV N ATTN; the Chris Brown remix arrived in May 2022, and the original stays the version to link.

Depression records rarely bounce like this. Omah Lay wrote soso — Spotify keeps his Boy Alone tracklist all lowercase — about his own mental health and let Tempoe's production carry it, a keening vocal chop circling the track like a siren while the drums sway underneath. It became the album's sleeper hit, charting from Nigeria to France months after the July 2022 release.

One studio night, one TikTok post. Pheelz — a hitmaking producer stepping out as an artist — cut Finesse with co-producer Miichkel, uploaded a clip in February 2022, and BNXN found it on the app and added his verse. By March 8 it was the most Shazamed song on earth. The bare ah-finesse vocal before the bass lands is the decade's best cold open.

Named for the Johannesburg township, Soweto is nonetheless a Lagos record through and through — Victony floats a feather-light melody over Tempoe's near-empty beat, two bass notes and clicking percussion doing the work of a band. It came off the 2022 Outlaw EP, blew up on TikTok, and a 2023 remix with Don Toliver and Rema reached US R&B radio; the original is what is linked.

Amapiano border, crossed on purpose: Davido brought in South Africa's Musa Keys, and UNAVAILABLE breaks into log drums for its back half like a record changing countries mid-song. Co-produced by Rage and Magicsticks for Timeless in March 2023 — Spotify renders the title in all caps — it spent five weeks atop the UK Afrobeats chart and took a Grammy nomination.

Ghana's alte wing gets its flag-bearer here. Amaarae and MOLIY whisper SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY over a rubbery bassline on the 2020 album The Angel You Don't Know — Spotify prints the title in caps — and the September 2021 Kali Uchis remix later carried it to number 80 on the Hot 100. The original two-hander linked here is stranger and sharper than the crossover version.