Afrobeats

What it is

The plural matters. Afrobeat is Fela Kuti's music and it is documented elsewhere in this catalogue; afrobeats with an s is Nigerian and Ghanaian pop from roughly 2010 onward, and the two share a city and not much else. What holds an afrobeats record together is a percussion loop rather than a kit. A shekere runs the sixteenths, a conga answers on the offbeats, and the kick plays four hits at uneven distances and never touches beat 2. The backbeat, such as it is, sits on beat 3 as a rimshot rather than on 2 and 4. Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Tems and dozens of producers made this the default pop rhythm of a continent inside a decade.

What it sounds like

Warm, uncluttered and mixed for headphones. Shekere and shaker across the top, a conga or talking drum answering, a soft kick with no click, and a rimshot that is dry and small. Underneath, a bass that plays a written figure rather than holding roots, usually with a short glide into each note. Chords are guitar or plucked keys, two bars, repeated. Vocals are heavily doubled and sit forward, with a lot of tuning applied openly rather than hidden. The overall level is not loud; these records have more dynamic range than most pop and the percussion is what fills the space instead of compression.

Key elements

• A rimshot on beat 3Not on 2 and 4. One dry rimshot on beat 3, with a ghost somewhere in the first beat, and the ear supplies a backbeat that is never actually played.
• Beat 2 left aloneThe kick plays beat 1, the and of 2, beat 3 and the and of 4. It never touches beat 2 itself, and that absence is what gives the pattern its forward lean.
• The shekereSixteenths that never stop, accented on the and of each beat at 58 and dropping to the low thirties elsewhere. It is the pulse, not the kick.
• A conga answeringFour strokes in bar one, on beat 2, the a of 2, beat 4 and the a of 4, filling in exactly where the rimshot and the kick are not playing.
• A bass that movesA written figure with glides between notes, doubling neither the kick nor the chord. It is the second melody and it is mixed like one.

How to get them

• Start with the shekereProgram the sixteenths and the accent pattern before anything else, then write the kick to fit it. Doing it the other way round produces a house record with percussion on top.
• Rimshot, not clapA side stick sample, high-passed at 400Hz, very short, around velocity 104 on beat 3. Do not put anything on 2 or 4 and do not compensate with a clap.
• KickSoft, long, low-passed at about 1.5kHz with no click layer. It is holding the bottom rather than driving, and a punchy kick makes the whole thing sound European.
• Talking drumIf you have one, put it on the conga lane instead. A pitched hand drum with a bend into each note does the job of a topline and gets the record identified in two bars.
• Swing0.55. Enough to lift the shekere off the grid without turning the conga answers into triplets. Check by soloing the percussion only.
• Leave headroomMix to about minus 10 on the master and do not limit hard. The genre reads as spacious, and squashing it removes the gap between the rimshot and the shekere.

Reference points

Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Tems, Rema, Sarkodie, and producers Sarz, P.Prime, Kel-P and Killertunes. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.