By Lonwabo Mtyeku – GP News Media
On September 22, 2025, Spotify officially launched Afrobeats: Culture in Motion, a sweeping global project that does more than trace the meteoric rise of one of the world’s most electrifying genres — it documents a movement, a cultural renaissance led by Africa and embraced by the world.
At the heart of the launch is Culture in Motion, a new Spotify original documentary that follows the next wave of Afrobeats talent, capturing the unfiltered energy of studios, streets, and stages where the future is being written. Complementing the film is an immersive microsite on Spotify’s newsroom, For the Record, where listeners can dive into five pillars that frame the Afrobeats journey: sound evolution, global expansion, women of Afrobeats, visual language, and community.
But beyond the music, what Spotify reveals is nothing short of staggering — a testament to how Afrobeats is not just sound, but the language of a generation.
The Sound of Now: Evolution and Emotion
Afrobeats has always been vibrant, rooted in joy, rhythm, and resistance. But the genre is evolving. Spotify’s data shows that introspective, emotionally charged vocals now account for 38% of global Afrobeats streams, reflecting a shift toward storytelling that resonates deeply with global audiences. Afrobeats today is not just a soundtrack for the dance floor — it is a diary of lived experiences, unfiltered and uncompromising.
The World is Listening: Latin America’s Love Affair
If there was any doubt about Afrobeats’ global reach, the numbers erase it. In the last 12 months alone, Afrobeats generated over 240 million discoveries on Spotify worldwide. Latin America, in particular, has become a surprising and powerful frontier. Listenership in the region surged by 180% year-on-year, with Brazil experiencing a mind-bending 500% growth since 2020. The synergy between Latin rhythms and African beats is forging a transatlantic cultural bridge, uniting audiences through shared grooves and universal emotion.
Queens of the Genre: Women Leading the Wave
Afrobeats has long been male-dominated, but the tide has shifted. Tems shattered ceilings as the first African female artist to surpass 1 billion Spotify streams for a single track, while Ayra Starr’s listenership in Nigeria has skyrocketed by more than 3,000% since 2020. These numbers are not just statistics; they are proof that women are not just part of the movement — they are propelling it, rewriting the rules of stardom, and amplifying the feminine voice of Afrobeats on a global stage.
The Look of Afrobeats: Fashion as Storytelling
Afrobeats is as much a visual culture as it is a sonic one. From Rema’s Benin-inspired homage at London’s O2 Arena, to Tems gracing the Oscars red carpet and the Met Gala spotlight, Afrobeats artists are shaping global aesthetics. The genre’s fashion is more than style — it is history stitched into fabric, identity painted onto the body, and a new visual lexicon that the world is eagerly learning.
Fans as Tastemakers: Community in Motion
No industry mogul or algorithm could have scripted Afrobeats’ rise the way its fans have. Communities across continents are reimagining the rules of discovery, turning fandom into a living, breathing cultural force. From TikTok dance challenges to university parties in Lagos, Johannesburg, São Paulo, and London, fans are the tastemakers, reshaping what hits, what spreads, and what becomes iconic.
The South African Story: A Local Love Affair
While Afrobeats is global, in South Africa it feels personal. The country has embraced the genre with a passion that rivals any other, underscored by Spotify’s data:
- Gen Zs aged 18-24 in South Africa spent nearly 7 million hours listening to Afrobeats in the last year.
- Songs in the genre were discovered over 7 million times locally in just 12 months.
- Since 2020, the overall Afrobeats audience in South Africa has grown by more than 1000%.
- The seed was planted in 2020, when listenership surged 136% compared to 2019, igniting a sustained era of growth.
In a country where music is both memory and movement, Afrobeats has become the sound of youthful optimism — a sonic bridge between Africa’s West and South.
Culture in Motion: More than Music
Spotify’s Afrobeats: Culture in Motion is not a campaign; it is documentation of a cultural revolution. It is an acknowledgment that Afrobeats is not just Africa’s gift to the world but a shared language of hope, rhythm, resilience, and joy.
From Lagos to Johannesburg, São Paulo to London, Afrobeats has rewritten the global playlist. And as the documentary and microsite reveal, this is not just about where the music has been — it is about where it is going.
Afrobeats is not slowing down. It is accelerating, expanding, and reshaping the global soundscape in real time. The culture is in motion. And the world is dancing along