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5 Exciting Afrobeats Playlists That Will keep You Dancing

Updated: Jan 13


5 Exciting Afrobeats Playlists to Dance To


Here at Shey dance studios we love playlists! The right playlist can carry you through the day, change your mood and more importantly, make you dance. So, we looked through Spotify for playlists that have the secret sauce. After listening to a few of these playlists we could tell that the playlist authors put a lot of thought into their mixture of songs. So, After some careful selection we created a list of Spotify playlists that will blow your mind.



What we like about this playlist– This playlist stays on top of the latest tracks that are popular on Nigerian charts and is updated every week. This playlist also introduces you to niche songs and artists you may not have expected. Overall, The songs on this playlist are dance worthy and should definitely be checked out. This playlist is approximately 3 hours long and can be listened through fairly quickly.




What we like about this playlist – Summer may be over, but this playlist brings it back. It includes popular summer songs from artists like Niniola, Burna boy, Wizkid and Mr Eazi. if you are a long-time fan of Afrobeats songs, you’ll know that these artists tend to consistently release summer bangers! The only other thing you should keep in mind about this playlist is its length. The total listen time of this playlist is nearly 6 hours.





What we like about this playlist – This playlist is basically an archive of popular Afrobeats dance songs all the way back to 2012. It includes legendary tracks like Ile Ijo by May D and Azonto by Wizkid. All these tracks bring back so many memories and are certified bangers! The playlist length is over 21 hours. If you are new to Afrobeats music this would be the perfect playlist to start off with because it contains quite a few genre defining tracks on its list.





What we like about this playlist– It's short and sweet and it is significantly shorter than the other playlists on this list. This playlist can be finished in less than 2 hours and is managed by Spotify. However, it is not updated as frequently as the others on this list and feels algorithm based. Which means that these songs are updated based on how frequently they are played on social media, used in popular dance videos or are frequency talked about online. So, if you would like a dose of these types of songs, check it out.




What we like about this playlist – This playlist includes songs from all over Africa. It's quite ironic given that the playlist author is called ‘Nigerianmusic’ but regardless, the songs on this playlist targets no specific country and it’s a collage of well-known hits from South Africa, Nigeria, Gambia and many other African countries. It's quite a long playlist and will take you a good 17 hours to complete.




So, there you go, hopefully you found your new favourite playlist and discovered new songs that will keep you dancing all day. Share your thoughts in the comments below. There are also a whole lot of playlists to discover, so by all means head out there and explore!

Afrobeats and Music streaming platforms


I remember when the concept of listening to Afrobeats on streaming platforms first came to mind. I was a bit hesitant to jump on the bandwagon because at the time, like everyone else I got Afrobeats music updates from either notjustok.com or Gidilounge. These were and still are sites where new and well-established musicians for all over Africa release their songs. Established artists obviously got a lot more attention, however it was also easy to find hidden gems and identity the new buds before they blow up! The likes of Mayokun, Eva and Zlatan were just a few of the artists that released their content on websites like these.



Spotify on the other hand, does not feature grassroot artists with no star power on their platform. It’s only after they’ve reached a certain level of fame that they tend to have their music on there. However, there are some other benefits. Spotify is smart enough to keep track of the songs you listen to and then compare that to what other people on their platform with similar tastes listen to. Spotify then creates a daily playlist based on the results. With this you can discover other Afrobeat notable artists you’ve never even heard of.



The other advantage is the plethora of playlists you have access to. Anyone can create their own compilation of playlists that really speaks to them. Some are private to yourself or public and Some are curated by spotify.

If you have playlists that really resonate with you share your comments below!

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