Has Afrobeat Overtaken Reggae/Dancehall in Global Popularity?

[MVike28]

 

[Spade]

Sheeeeit I’m thankful that my friends rock with LoFi and Instrumental Beats

I’m prolly one of the very few in my group that listens to House music tho. Deep House be feeling like how I expect water therapy to feel like

I was vibin out to this song on my way home from work the other day and it legit put me through a whole trance for half the entire ride

Yeah I'm just like you. Probably the only one in my circle that listens to House music. That one you posted with Norm Talley from Detroit I have worn out and I still listen to it.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

"slackness" isn't what made dancehall stale; that's actually a part of what made it popular. The reason Afrobeats is more popular than current Dancehall is because they (the producers) figured a way to be a distinct genre while using sonics from other afro-diapsoric genres that are already mainstream which makes them sound BOTH similar and different at the same time

Time stamped the modern Afrobeatz part





Dancehall's problem is that while they used to do the same (it's called reggae fusion when they do it)



...they got stuck into repetitive patterns while not being able to appropriate other afro-diasporic sounds in a new innovative way. The last song that sounded like "classic dancehall" that used other afro sounds in a fresh way was Rihanna's



...which is straight up classic jamaican dancehall + deep house synths


If you want to see an example of a genre that realized that classic jamaican dancehall beat(s) had to be eased out to make way for appropriation of other afro-diasporic sounds, look no further than MODERN REGGAETON

Repost I made from 3 years ago in this thread


https://www.thecoli.com/threads/why...-reggaeton-artists-have-the-past-year.613757/

the difference is modern reggaeton cut down on the dewbow beat and replaced it with trap and house music influences

Reggaeton was dead until they rebooted off of the trap and house influences. The OG reggaeton is dead...they are now going more trappish and that makes their sound more modern and other's are more tropical house (dancehall + deep house).Fat Joe touched on this in his latest Drink Champs when he explained why he hated the OG reggaeton sound from the early to mid 2000's but why he likes what they're doing now with the sound.

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so in a sense, modern reggaeton and afrobeatz are using the same formula but one has spanish lyrics and the other has an "afro-beat". Modern jamaican dancehall is struggling to the same type of blend in a unique type of way because they are too tied to old dancehall "riddims"

 

[TEH]

I love both but only Roots Reggae

If I had to choose it to would be Afrobeat though

Dancehall Reggae is too hyper masculine, overly sexual and mean spirited these days ... every dancehall song talking about your p*ssy this or that ... I stopped listening to hip hop like that also ,..

I prefer joyful or introspective music

 

[King Frost]

dancehall wanna be trap now

they left out the "dance" and the "fun" element






the producers/artistes from the 80's/90's early 2000's gave the young nikkas the blueprint and they fumbled it.

 

[Yehuda]

The issue comes down to the fact that your average dancehall tune cant be played on radio while your average afrobeat tune can

Jamaican dancehall stars are massive in Africa , they fill stadiums , in terms of money they make and bookings they are making more money than ever , so its not a case of dancehall falling off because it hasnt , its more popular than ever and this is a Nigerian telling you this

And furthermore modern afrobeat is heavily influenced by dancehall because Africans love dancehall and dancehall artists , the biggest Afrobeat artists in the world will be quick to tell you how much they love and respect dancehall

Afro beat is more radio friendly and thats the ONLY reason why , explicit music wont get radio play , and thats it

What jars me is that idiots are presenting things in a way that dancehall artists are doing something wrong and Afrobeat artists are doing something right ..... the truth is NOBODY thinks this

/thread

 

[IllmaticDelta]

I'll take it one step further, Afrobeat will overtake Hip Hop

Na, Afrobeat overtook Dancehall but it isn't bigger than reggae proper; it has no chance in hell to get bigger than HipHop because HipHop has the ability to appear colorblind in a way that makes people regardless of ethnicity/race want to "join" in and become a part the "culture". True globalness is when you cross not only intraracial lines but most of all, interracial borders.

I don't know about this

the characters that come out the neighborhoods that produce the music is also important

besides the music you gotta show the world how to dress how to talk how to move

hip-hop/rap still provides the blueprint for what a popstar across all media is

when you see that change you'll know the shift is official

just like hip-hop/rap took the place of the rock.band attitude culture & look

afrobeats or any other wave is gonna have to come up with it's own visual vocabulary & just a pervasive culture that impacts the world like hip-hop/rap does

*

this is part of the reason why

 

[UpAndComing]

Na, Afrobeat overtook Dancehall but it isn't bigger than reggae proper; it has no chance in hell to get bigger than HipHop because HipHop has the ability to appear colorblind in a way that makes people regardless of ethnicity/race want to "join" in and become a part the "culture". True globalness is when you cross not only intraracial lines but most of all, interracial borders.

Never underestimate the white man's ability to put a white face on anything. They literally convinced the world that Rock Music is "white music"

Whether its a more accessible form of music or more authentic black music, it will find its way into white consumers

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Never underestimate the white man's ability to put a white face on anything. They literally convinced the world that Rock Music is "white music"

True but they were only able to do this because black music in the USA that's least attached to the slave experience (Gospel or Blues for example would be the most attached) is easier to appropriate/obscure the origins with a white face

Whether its a more accessible form of music or more authentic black music, it will find its way into white consumers

If the music is considered too ethnic (non-white) they (whites) would need someone to make hybrid/fusion form to be able to crossover. This is how white producers in Britain crossed over Bob Marley to the white masses

BLACKWELL: Nobody was interested in playing Bob Marley on the radio. We had to tour him—that was the only way it could work.

MAJD: When Bob came to see you in England, did you already know him from Jamaica?

BLACKWELL: I didn’t know him.

MAJD: But you knew who he was, and he came to see you in your London office, and . . . Well, the story is famous: You gave him 4,000 pounds to go and make a record, not thinking that he’d ever show up again . . .

BLACKWELL: Well, I believed that he would.



MAJD: But nobody else at Island did.BLACKWELL: Nobody else in the world did. Bob Marley and The Wailers had a reputation for being total rebels and being sort of impossible to deal with. It was simply because, you know, they were being treated unfairly.

MAJD: So you gave Bob Marley the money, and then he went to Jamaica and recorded the songs that would become Catch a Fire [1973]. Then you went to Jamaica and heard it, is that correct?

BLACKWELL: I went about three months later. I went to where they had a little record store, because The Wailers had their own label, and they had been putting out their own records. Rita [Marley] was there . . .

MAJD: You’re going to see her in a few hours . . .

BLACKWELL: That’s right! And so I said, “I want to see the guys and hear what they’ve recorded. Have they recorded anything?” Because I was prepared for them to have done nothing. So they came around and picked me up and took me to the studio and played me some of the songs. The first one I heard was “Slave Driver,” and I remember it particularly because, firstly, I was excited that they had recorded anything. So I was really encouraged. It had this great kind of bass line. The second line of the song says “catch a fire,” and, you know, I remember thinking right there, Wow, if this record is good, then that’s the title of the album. After that, they played “Concrete Jungle,” which was the most complex reggae song I had ever heard. And then they played me another ballad-y song, and it was nice, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for, because I was looking for rebel, militant music, since the whole thing was coming off the momentum of The Harder They Come [1972], and I wanted that spirit to come alive. Initially I was figuring out that that was what to do with Jimmy Cliff, but Jimmy Cliff left about a week before I got there, and then Bob walked in, and he’s the real thing. So I said, “I think we should put that song on the record later,” and then, you know, when it was finished, I told them how great I thought it was. And then Bob came to England because I wanted to work on the record to make it more palatable for the rock audience.



MAJD: At that point you’d been dealing with that audience for a while.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And I knew we could pull them in, but reggae in England at that point was known as novelty music. Every year, there’d be two or three hits, like “Long Shot Kick De Bucket” [the 1969 song by The Pioneers], but they were like novelty tunes. At that time, reggae wasn’t considered serious music, whereas rock music had been considered serious for some time. Jimi Hendrix was a model, in a sense, because I felt like Bob could be that big. And so I worked on Catch a Fire. I moved things around. I had rock guitar, synthesizers, and expanded into solos, because reggae never had solos—although ska did—so I put that element back into the music. In fact, if you listen to the work that Bob did on Island, from Catch a Fire up until the last record he made [Uprising, 1980], the first one is much more polished than the last one. But I needed to polish it to bring in the rock audience and to get them accepted as a black rock group—that’s how I was positioning things.

MAJD: So the way you marketed Catch a Fire wasas a rock record?

BLACKWELL: Completely as a rock record. The idea of the cover came from the art director at Capitol Records in America, because I had made a deal for Island in 1970 with Capitol. It was that guy who came up with the idea of the lighter . . . Ah, what’s it called?

Chris Blackwell - Interview Magazine

 

[newworldafro]

I thought this was a Brazilian song cause this IG video had a clip playing it.

Then I found the track. This shiit hit

 

[invalid]

Bumping so y’all can post some new piff.

 

[CopiousX]

Its bigger than that.

Im legit in a starbux right now listening to my own music, but then i hear some very clearly obvious african drum patterns from the coffe shop speakers. So i take off my headphones and im suprised to be hearing afrobeat in their playlist. And i could swear that this is their corporate playlist too




And this is a starbux in the whitest part of town too. And they somehow playing burnaBoy in the backgorund. Honestly inhavent heard dance hall playing in a similarly white environment since sean Kingston was on the chrarts so afroBeat is clearly on the rise.

 

[UberEatsDriver]

Its bigger than that.

Im legit in a starbux right now listening to my own music, but then i hear some very clearly obvious african drum patterns from the coffe shop speakers. So i take off my headphones and im suprised to be hearing afrobeat in their playlist. And i could swear that this is their corporate playlist too




And this is a starbux in the whitest part of town too. And they somehow playing burnaBoy in the backgorund. Honestly inhavent heard dance hall playing in a similarly white environment since sean Kingston was on the chrarts so afroBeat is clearly on the rise.

I imagine once you leave America this sums up the scenario all over

 

[GrindtooFilthy]

"slackness" isn't what made dancehall stale; that's actually a part of what made it popular. The reason Afrobeats is more popular than current Dancehall is because they (the producers) figured a way to be a distinct genre while using sonics from other afro-diapsoric genres that are already mainstream which makes them sound BOTH similar and different at the same time

Time stamped the modern Afrobeatz part





Dancehall's problem is that while they used to do the same (it's called reggae fusion when they do it)



...they got stuck into repetitive patterns while not being able to appropriate other afro-diasporic sounds in a new innovative way. The last song that sounded like "classic dancehall" that used other afro sounds in a fresh way was Rihanna's



...which is straight up classic jamaican dancehall + deep house synths


If you want to see an example of a genre that realized that classic jamaican dancehall beat(s) had to be eased out to make way for appropriation of other afro-diasporic sounds, look no further than MODERN REGGAETON

Repost I made from 3 years ago in this thread


Why aren't Jamaican Dancehall artists blowing up like spanish reggaeton artists have the past year?



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so in a sense, modern reggaeton and afrobeatz are using the same formula but one has spanish lyrics and the other has an "afro-beat". Modern jamaican dancehall is struggling to the same type of blend in a unique type of way because they are too tied to old dancehall "riddims"

I dunno bro there’s a new style of dancehall music that’s emerging from Brooklyn called flex dance music or FDM for short which I feel like solved that not being able to merge contemporary sounds problem you mention look up hitmakerchinx he’s a pioneer of this genre And he was on Rihanna’s anti tour.

 

[Strapped]

Is this the hottest joint on rotation
@Ugo Ogugwa This is your time boy