Tracing Afrobeats’ Yoruba Roots: ‘Wizkid Now Was Sunny Adé Then’ – Rolling Stone

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Five trendsetters sit and stand in a group against a plain backdrop, all clad in dark clothing. With an Afrobeats vibe reminiscent of a Wizkid album cover, their style speaks to modern influences blended with rich Yoruba roots.

In just three short years, Nigerian street-pop savant Asake has become a giant in African music, meeting Wizkid, Davido, and Burna Boy in a place it took them three times that span to reach. What’s more, much of Asake’s mythmaking happened in just 2022, with the absolute pandemonium of his debut Mr. Money With The Vibe. With Asake’s ubiquity came reverence for a sixty year old genre attributed to the Yoruba ethnic group, fuji. Asake and his producer Magicsticks made their obsession with it clear through their crazed and complex…