Even adrift I'm still a diva
2026 Mix 20: African and Caribbean pop in the spotlight, plus some thoughts on rises (or falls) of regional scenes
A non-US/Anglosphere mix this week, partly the result of having three mixes to arrange simultaneously. It has me thinking about the state of various regional music scenes. I wrote last year that I couldn’t figure out what was happening to Afrobeats, which seemed to have disappeared from global charts compared to its heyday from the late ‘10s into the early ‘20s:
So…any idea what’s happened to Nigerian pop this year? Has its devil’s bargain with amapiano short-circuited its own development? It is approximately nowhere on the global charts, and the Nigerian charts seem to have pulled away a bit, too, a few breakthroughs like Shallipopi notwithstanding. But I could be totally wrong here, might need to do a regional dive soon to see what I’ve been missing.
So I was glad to see an article about this in the Guardian (h/t Collin Smith at No Chambers).
I think there are some important observations here. One, there is a sort of double-edged sword to what I’ve been writing about as the post-A-pop era of regional competitors: regions rise and fall according to the social dynamics of the globalized monsterverse. From artist Joeboy: “Afrobeats’ global rise has made the world interested in not just our music but our culture, our fashion, our swag.” But this “world interest” can be fickle.
Two, although the piece is neutral about how Afrobeats has adapted its sound to incorporate South African dance music (including amapiano’s log drums and now 3-step, see Zinoleesky’s new one below), I think that this has been a serious trap for the scene and it’s put itself in a position of always sounding a step behind what it’s borrowing from.1 But maybe it’s the other way around, and interest started to decline first — a marketing manager in the piece says, “Amapiano no longer seems to be working. In fact, nobody knows what works and that’s causing a lot of panic.”
And finally, there’s a compelling theory put forward in the piece that part of what drove the Afrobeats ascent was a pandemic bubble where people were exploring new music at the same time the world was also experiencing an acute “brain drain” episode, especially from west Africa to the UK.
Whether these diagnoses are correct or not I’m not qualified to say, but I do wonder about them. They all seem plausible but also somehow insufficient to describe the global pop environment, where the erosion of gatekeepers belies the piece’s repeated invocation of industry decision-makers. (I don’t doubt that these decision-makers still play a huge role, but they don’t play the only role in popularity.)
There’s one section of the piece that bothered me, and it’s how Afrobeats’ perception in the United States is framed: “Industry experts also worry that the rise of conservative politics and ethno-nationalism in the west has contributed to Afrobeats’ dwindling popularity.” The article’s author connects this to one interviewee’s comment on the success of country music on the Billboard Hot 100: “The resurgence of country music and other traditionally white genres, he argues, gestures at the kinds of budgets being approved.” This seems like a specious correlation to me: if there was a resurgence of country music on the US Hot 100, it happened at the same time that Afrobeats and rap music also ascended between 2019 and 2021. So the question isn’t whether country has risen at the expense of other music like Afrobeats or rap but whether resources are being pulled from Afrobeats but not from other places, and then whether this actually has anything to do with ethnonationalism or a conservative political turn.
I think a more compelling frame here would be to think of regionalization as a phenomenon that also affects the US, where country music and to a lesser extent R&B function as regional styles that don’t tend to translate globally at the same scale they hit in the US.2
A regionalization perspective suggests that regions will cyclically come in and out of fashion in unpredictable ways. The main thrust of the A-pop series was that the US itself has to be thought of now as one of many regional competitors, and that US pop music specifically doesn’t have a history of being framed in this way. But the flip side is that different regional styles will also rise and fall, and that it’s hard to know when and why precisely because the global landscape has changed so much so quickly.
One thing to look out for, and something that my own somewhat haphazard listening methods sometimes help me get an intuitive sense of, is how different regions’ music is faring internationally. From the vantage of my listening (just my impressions), Caribbean rhythmic genres like shatta and especially bouyon seem globally ascendant in a way that Naija pop and Afrobeats was at the end of the ‘10s. Southeast Asian regional pop forms loosely based on K-pop and J-pop seem to be developing quickly, while K-pop struggles with a complicated role as a center of gravity without the benefit of more robust US-style cultural dominance, and J-pop continues to operate in a more stable parallel universe.
Japan’s longstanding pop industry might be a better model to understand what’s been happening in, e.g., South Africa and Brazil, two areas seem to have stable and adaptable scenes, both with fairly open-ended templates (Brazilian funk and South African house music) that have never quite broken through with a specific transnational megastar, but also continually inspire absorption and copying in other regions.3
I am equal parts curious and ambivalent around how music spreads now, and just-so narratives don’t capture the fundamental shift in global listening to omnidirectionality and unpredictability. Structural patterns can be clear in hindsight without always having obvious causes (which is not the same as saying that there’s no cause, just that you can only determine them after the fact in ways that are basically unrepeatable). I find this very exciting as a listener, but for artists and business interests, not to mention journalists, it’s maybe a different story.
1. LinLin: +
France
2. Fallon: Bisous
France
As promised and/or previewed in my April roundup, here are two Caribbean-pop-indebted French pop stars to watch: LinLin’s “+” sounds like a superstar in the making charging out of the gate, while Fallon doesn’t grab as hard but demonstrates an insinuating adaptability to her surroundings that reminds me of someone like Cassie, avoiding making an obvious mark in any given moment but lingering with you afterward as having indelibly stamped herself into the material.
3. Dj Glad, N’Ken, Bilouki: Chaud (3X)
Martinique
Shatta and bouyon are both traveling well to new regions, but their respective scenes are still full speed ahead; I’m not fielding a weekly deluge of content like in funk or amapiano, but there’s more than enough to specialize if you were so inclined.
4. Zinoleesky: Nostalgia
Nigeria
I’ve come a long way with my pharmacy that only plays Nigerian music, and correctly ID’ed a Zinoleesky song when I walked in the other day (I kept this information to myself).4 He is still one of my favorite Nigerian vocalists, but I am struck by how sweaty the surroundings are, a lot of effort for what should be a more effortless 3-step sound.
5. Champuru Makhenzo, Audio Addicts, Buxzi Lee, Amaza: 444
South Africa
6. JayJayy, Mordecai: Mngani Wami (Jaydecai)
South Africa
Meanwhile South African house music itself seems to have no such crisis. As I said up top, I think the various dance subgenres have demonstrated a resiliency that many other scenes don’t have. The one that to my ears sounds like a global crossover smash (3-step blend, a hook in English) has not really taken off, while the fantastic debut album from an up-and-coming amapiano singer, JayJayy, brings many of amapiano’s best producers together and they all sound great without really making compromises for amapiano outsiders. (JayJayy is a find from the ILM Rolling Afrohouse thread.)
7. Maandy: Hainaga Mambo
Kenya
My inability to get a bead on Kenyan pop, as does my enjoyment of Maandy, who never seems to put out the same sort of song twice. This time out she opts for dancehall.
8. 15 15: Take Off Late
Tahiti-France
Interesting project from the Tahitian-heritage Paris-based group that imagines a mythical Polynesian island where the tide is always right for surfing and the beats follow suit in rolling waves, can’t seem stay still for more than a minute at a time.
9. Tayna: Vena
Kosovo-Albania
I’ve been eagerly awaiting Tayna’s album since liking her amapiano-indebted pop—like LokpoLokpo, I assumed this would be something like my “Rihanna needs to make an amapiano album” dream from 2023. It includes bits of that but is more expansive and genre-ambivalent. This song, though, is pretty much exactly what I’ve wanted, and I’m surprised more people haven’t cracked it, give or take a few Tyla songs.
10. DJ Jeeh FDC, Mc Gw, Yuri Redicopa: Ritmada Do MJ2
Brazil
One I’d slotted into my Brazilian holdover list until Frank Kogan put it in his ongoing 2026 singles list, at which point I kicked myself for missing the “Earth Song” sample. (I know I glossed over this at the time because there’s a zero percent chance I would have kept it off of a mix if I’d really noticed.) Consider it harm reduction for the Michael soundtrack—are these sorts of huge samples in Brazilian funk authorized and paid for? I hope not!
11. DJ Danilinho Beat, MC Rafa 22: Medley pro DJ Danilinho Beat #3
Brazil
No idea why this song in particular jumped out to me, but it does provide a good example of what I once referred to as “melody literacy” in Brazilian funk. I was thinking about the role of melody in funk on the 20-year anniversary of Girl Talk’s Night Ripper, which I’ve come to really dislike over the years for its cavalier approach to every element of a song that isn’t the BPM. I wrote over on Bluesky: “There are times when he will let songs [in keys] that are one or two steps away from each other just play for a minute (worst ever offender might be ‘Rude Boy’ and ‘Waiting Room’)—even the most extreme Brazilian funk DJs don’t do this because it’s not ‘abrasive,’ it just sucks.”
There’s a smooth match in this song between melodic quality in the rap and the key of the song—I couldn’t tell you whether this is done intuitively by the MC or more deliberately by the DJ afterward (I imagine in different songs, either option might be in play). I think the abrasion and jaggedness in funk wouldn’t work if it was totally artless—the songs start with a kernel of something beautiful and will then bury it to see if you can still sense it underneath, like the princess and the pea. (This particular song sticks the pea on top of the mattress, though.)
12. 63OG, Minz: La tourelle
Cameroon-France/Nigeria
Interesting blend of coupe-decale with a plainer rap vocal. Should note that as I write this, the song and its accompanying album, 63Problemes, seem to have been taken off of YouTube and streaming. [Note: the song is back up just before this is scheduled to publish, hooray! But I don’t have anything else to say about it at the moment.]
13. Eizzyboi: Ninu Eko
Nigeria
Can’t quite place this—it struck me as having some of the frenetic motion of Nigerian cruise music, with log drum providing some thrown elbows. This is refreshing after the log drum sound has generally mellowed in a lot of post-amapiano production. Eizzyboi’s other music is a combination of upbeat Afrobeats and more straightforward hip-hop, so not sure exactly what this is or where it came from.
14. cKovi: Kora Kora
Mexico
Mexican…acid-kawaii? (My attempt to figure out how to define the “weaponized cuteness” that has broken containment from J-pop and started to show up all over the world.) It’s interesting in how it models itself after J-pop consciously, or self-consciously, but ends up sounding like a lot of other Latin American pop finding the same weapons from different directions.
15. Torfi: Ásdís Rán
Iceland
We need as many songs with the “Wearing My Rolex” synths as possible.
16. Mandyspie: Last Dance
Canada-France
French-Canadian hypertrap that sounds ready made for some hypothetical mall of the future, sounds great.
17. Tshegue: Psycho
DRC/France
Tshegue is one of the rare acts that I now give multiple listens to on principle. This one was a grower, so I’m glad I slowed down for it. Unfortunately you need to build up a lot of goodwill before I can do this, so I will continue to skip right past dozens of good songs each week. Sorry!
18. Viviane Chidid f. Bakhaw Dioum: C’est dieu qui decide
Senegal
19. Xduppy, Angekebabuye Mc f. Focalistic, Benzoo, DJ Maphorisa, Uncle Waffles, Mluusician: Lwetse 2.0
South Africa
Two leads from Lokpo—the rolling Senegal YouTube chart playlist hits predictable polyrhythmic paydirt from Viviane Chidid (I should really have an alert out for her releases). Then an update of a song I already had kicking around in my South African house holdover list brings in an all-star cast to join its already pretty all-starry cast.
20. Colkaze, Mbuxx f. Loony Q, Pablo Eddie: Wehh Mbuxx
South Africa
Another amapiano song I’m finding hard to describe—it strikes me as somewhat unfashionable and outdated. If amapiano development is like dog years, then four years’ nostalgia feels like ten. This particular song secured its status as a mix closer by doing that annoying thing where the song sputters to a close with several false endings, fade-outs, and silences, in a way that sounds like it might have been an editing mistake. Check your waveforms before you upload these things!
That’s it! Until next time, please try not to make any mash-ups with two songs in different keys.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Tshegue: Psycho (“Même dans la dérive, j’reste une diva”)
Asake, a pioneer in the Amabeats fusion with different producers, strikes me as a figure like DJ Mustard or Max Martin, building a sound that seems simple and replicable but consistently falls flat in the hands of other people. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Asake himself has been one of the few consistently charting Naija pop artists (his new ones just hit the Global 200 Excluding US charts).
I am skeptical that rap music in particular has dwindled in any serious way in the US, while there have been some major breakthroughs from R&B radio in the past year or two that do seem to function as regional US phenomena (i.e. don’t do as well on the global charts excluding the US).
I haven’t mentioned the wider landscape of contemporary Latin American and Spanish-language pop, which I think is probably a much bigger story that I have trouble accounting for even in a shallow or cursory way.
It was “Personal,” a song I’d shared in a cover version by six-year-old singer Musty.