Every week, we highlight the top Afrobeats and African music releases through our best music column, Songs You Need to Hear This Week.
If you like these African music lists, you can also check out our Best Afrobeats and Best Amapiano of the month columns, plus our Best Songs of the Month columns following Nigerian, Ghanaian, East African and South African music.
Read ahead for our round-up of the best new African music tracks and music videos that came across our desks this week.
Wizkid “Diamonds (S2 Expressions)” + “IDK” ft. Zlatan
Nigerian superstar Wizkid has kicked off his year by sharing two new visuals from his S2 EP — which dropped in late December and included contributions from Wande Coal and Zlatan. The recently released music video for “Diamonds,” directed by DK, sees StarBoy in true braggadocious form, as he flexes jewelry and bars alone in a blue room. A few days before that, Wiz shared the visual for EP hit song, “IDK,” featuring Zlatan, which you can check out here.
Les Amazones d’Afrique “Flaws”
The constantly morphing collective, Les Amazones d’Afrique, came through with the new single and music video for “Flaws,” a track that will feature on their upcoming third studio album, Musow Danse (out February 16 on Real World Records). The song features Mali’s Mamani Keïta and Benin’s Fafa Ruffino on vocals, alongside production by Jacknife Lee. “The song has a simple message,” explains Keïta in a press release, “the perfect person does not exist. We all have our flaws and imperfections which we carry with us through life, but there is beauty in imperfection, and that’s what we want people to realise.”
Delasi ‘Audacity of Free Thought’ EP
Ghanaian producer, singer and rapper Delasi shares a forward-thinking and captivating EP that cycles through funk, avant-garde jazz and alternative R&B influences, all through a scope of his Ghanaian background. The 5-song Audacity of Free Thought EP, released on Gilles Peterson’s renowned Brownswood Recordings, is self-described as a “prophetic insight into the future” by Delasi in a press release. “I want to instigate conversations on being one’s self; on obeying our true influences while creating and not folding to the pressure of what our immediate environment seeks to dictate,” he adds.
Asake “Only Me”
Nigeria’s Asake, easily one of the top artists of last year, returned late last week with his first single of the year, “Only Me,” via YBNL/EMPIRE. Released on his birthday (January 13), the song is an appropriately self-celebratory anthem about Asake’s own achievements and ability to create his own lane. Asake is nominated for the first-ever Best African Music Performance Grammy award alongside Olamide for their song “Amapiano.”
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