How Afrobeats is Celebrating Nigeria’s Cultural Diversity & Harmony

Afrobeats and Nigerian music’s journey to the top have filled the most sceptical of music lovers with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

To see our music laced with heavy condiments of our spoken language and rich cultural backgrounds on the world stage, racking up streaming numbers and headlining shows, is enough to make one beam with pride.

Beyond hitting milestones and dominating the global airwaves, music is an integral part of Nigerian society, and at the foundation of our music are our different cultural identities.

From our different ethnic languages to our costumes, sound, music style, slang, and musical instruments, it’s incredibly difficult to miss—a cultural carnival, if you like. As we have different ethnic languages, our diversity is also evident in our music style. Different musical performers from unique backgrounds can identify themselves in a single song because of the layers of culture in it.

However, beyond the peculiarity of beats and sounds unique to us, there’s another constituent of our music that’s in part due to our multiculturalism. This is what is known as interculturalism in contemporary Nigerian music. Simply put, it is a celebration of our cultural diversity and national unity in our most commonly exported piece of art, music; a dialogue and interaction between two cultures in a song.

A perfect example is the renowned collaborations between Phyno and Olamide that has given us hit songs like “Augment”, “Ghost Mode”, “Fada Fada” and lots more.

While it may be impossible to highlight all the Nigerian languages in this piece, we need to share and appreciate some of the notable songs that have shown the multiculturalism and unity in diversity in our most popular export to the world since crude oil.

The songs below sum up Nigeria’s contemporary music’s richness in intercultural music harmony and dialogue.

Roju – Chike

Bracket feat. Wizkid — Girl 

Fada Fada — Phyno feat. Olamide 

Ghost Mode — Phyno feat. Olamide 

Ojemba — Phyno feat. Olamide

Local Rappers — Reminisce feat. Olamide & Phyno 

Assembly of Gods — Basketmouth, The Cavemen, Falz & Flavour feat. Magnito, Illbliss & Dremo

Igwe — Midnight Crew

Sinner — Iyanya feat. BNXN 

Oganigwe — Zlatan feat. Odumodublvck & Jeriq

Ololufe — Flavour feat. Chidimma