Despite the dominance of Afrobeats in the African music landscape, an exciting transformation is unfolding as Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music is undergoing a notable resurgence across the continent, with an average year-on-year growth of 133 per cent on Spotify.
While R&B is traditionally characterised by its soulful melodies, themes of love and relationships, African artistes are giving the genre a unique twist by infusing it with their own cultural and musical influences.
To leverage this growing popularity of the genre, Spotify has partnered with ColorsxStudios for a multi-day R&B writing camp in Nairobi, Kenya. The camp will bring together artistes, songwriters and producers from across Africa and beyond, with Spotify’s flagship R&B playlist, Tantalizers acting as the umbrella.
Africa’s thirst for quality R&B is undeniable, with Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and Uganda registering top R&B listenership on Spotify. Even in francophone and Portuguese markets like Côte d’Ivoire and Angola respectively, the presence of R&B is being felt across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Kenya seems to be leading the charge in this resurgence, according to Spotify data over the last 90 days. The Tantalizers playlist gets most of its streams from the country, and R&B ranks in the top five genres in Kenya.
It is on the back of this sweeping growth that R&B collaborations between international icons and African artists are becoming more commonplace than they were only a decade ago.
Source: The Guardian
