Of African Football and African Music

The upcoming AFCON semi-finals are a battle between the four powerhouses of African music.

Amapiano 🇿🇦 vs Afrobeats 🇳🇬 

Coupé Décalé 🇨🇮 vs Ndombolo 🇨🇩 

🎧 Music has always been at the center of AFCON. Some of Africa’s most famous artists including have been taped to record the official songs of the competition over the year.

This year legendary Magic System and Yemi Alade were selected to release Akwaba (which means welcome in Akan)…but if you ask any fan they will probably tell you that another song is the true music hit of the 2023 AFCON 🏆.

📺 Ivorian beat maker Tam Sir released “Coup du Marteau” in early January. Within a month, the song’s music video reached 20 million views on Youtube.

AFCON sponsor Orange used the hit to do a commercial for its new integrated app - the video hit 2.6 million views on Youtube within a similar time frame. This is a great example of how African creativity can be leveraged by brands to promote new products on the sidelines of a sports competition.

The power of African music is everywhere 🌍.

✨ This weekend Grammys awarded Tyla with the first-ever “Best African MusicPerformance” award. This long overdue recognition puts the spotlight on how African music genres have come to conquer the global stage and should give inspiration to more global brands to leverage this power.

I hope beat makers and artists from upcoming hosting countries (Morocco, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) are taking notes and getting ready !