How Afrobeats has become an unstoppable musical force

Afrobeats is a term often used to describe music coming out of West Africa. But in reality, music industry veterans and emerging stars say the sounds coming from the continent’s top artists shouldn’t be confined to one particular genre.

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CNN
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Growing up in poverty in rural Kenya, Nelly Cheboi watched her single mother, who had only completed fifth grade, work tirelessly so Cheboi and her three sisters could attend school.

From an early age, Cheboi realized that her family, along with others like hers in their village, was stuck in a cycle that left them little hope.

“She was working really hard, and I was still going to bed hungry. I was still sent home for tuition. I was still living in a house that was flooding,” said Cheboi, now 29. “Looking at the poverty in the household, looking at the community and suffering, it just became so clear that I needed to do something.”

Cheboi attended college on scholarship in the United States, worked odd jobs to support her family, and discovered her passion for computer science. She credits computer literacy for her ability to find job opportunities and make money doing what she loves. She knew she wanted to share it with her community back home.

Today, she’s giving 4,000 kids the chance for a brighter future through her nonprofit, TechLit Africa. The organization, whose name is short for Technologically Literate Africa, uses recycled computers to create technology labs in schools in rural Kenya.

“I know the pain of poverty, and that’s why I feel so passionate about it,” said Cheboi, a software engineer who splits her time between the US and Kenya. “I never forgot what it was like with my stomach churning because of hunger at night.”

In 2012, Cheboi received a full scholarship to Augustana College in Illinois and began her studies with almost no computer experience. She handwrote papers and struggled to transcribe them on a laptop. She said she never felt comfortable using a computer until her junior year when she took a Java course required for her mathematics major.

“When I discovered computer science, I just fell in love with it. I knew that this is something that I wanted to do as my career, and also bring it to my community,” she said.

Cheboi switched to a double major and earned a bachelor’s degree. Yet she says skills like touch-typing that came seamlessly to some were still a steep learning curve for her. At one point after college, she had to practice for six months before she could pass a coding interview. It’s a skill that is now a core part of the TechLit curriculum.

“I feel so accomplished seeing kids that are 7 years old touch-typing, knowing that I just learned how to touch-type less than five years ago,” she said.

Cheboi made inroads with businesses in her profession, and in 2018 she began accepting recycled computers from them. She started small, carrying the machines to Kenya in check-on bags and handling customs fees and taxes herself.

“At one point, I was bringing 44 computers, and I paid more for the luggage than I did for the air ticket,” she said.

TechLit Africa now works with freight and shipping companies to transport the donated computers so it’s more cost efficient. The donated hardware is wiped, refurbished and distributed to partner schools in rural Kenya, where students aged 4 to 12 receive daily classes and frequent opportunities to learn from professionals and gain skills that will help improve their education and prepare them for future jobs.

“We have people who own a specific skill coming in and are just inspiring the kids (with) music production, video production, coding, personal branding,” Cheboi said. “They can go from doing a remote class with NASA on education to music production with our artists.”

Cheboi’s organization maintains online and onsite ownership of the computers, providing tech support, software updates and troubleshooting. TechLit Africa installs new customer operating systems geared towards children, and schools are asked to pay a small fee for the services, which includes TechLit educators onsite from 8am-4pm.

The organization currently serves 10 schools, and by early next year, Cheboi hopes to be partnered with 100 more.

“My hope is that when the first TechLit kids graduate high school, they’re able to get a job online because they will know how to code, they will know how to do graphic design, they know how to do marketing,” Cheboi said. “The world is your oyster when you are educated. By bringing the resources, by bringing these skills, we are opening up the world to them.”

Want to get involved? Check out the TechLit Africa website and see how to help.

To donate to TechLit Africa via GoFundMe, click here

Abuja, Nigeria
CNN
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Every morning at 7am Nigerian time, Pastor Jerry Eze can be seen on a YouTube livestream fervently praying over thousands of stacks of requests he has received from his followers around the world.

Flanked usually by his wife Eno, and an associate, Eze’s passionate prayers are delivered in an urgent staccato, as he prays for cures to ailments and challenges such as illnesses, court cases, and financial issues.

Eze touts miracle healings with the slogan ‘What God cannot do does not exist,’ and midway through the live broadcast, cuts to pre-recorded videos from his followers sharing testimonies they say are the results of his prayers.

They range from healings from terminal illnesses to conception after years of infertility.

Eze describes the testimonies as the “strange acts of God.”

“It’s way beyond science and technology,” he says.

CNN has not independently verified the content of the videos.

The broadcasts on the New Season Prophetic Prayers and Declarations channel (NSPPD) have propelled Eze to become one of the most watched preachers on YouTube.

With more than 90,000 peak concurrent viewers, Eze’s daily broadcasts rank among the most streamed globally on YouTube, according to the analytics website Playboard, which collates data for YouTube channels.

His YouTube platform also ranks second among gospel channels with the most live viewers worldwide – trailing behind Brazilian preacher Bruno Leonardo, Playboard’s data shows.

Eze also rakes in large amounts of donations from his broadcasts. He is one of YouTube’s top-earning preachers who are leveraging the platform’s Super Chat donations that help creators earn revenue.

YouTube’s Super Chat feature allows viewers to pin their comments on live streams for a fee that ranges from $1 to $500.

Eze’s YouTube channel receives one of the highest Super Chat donations in the world, according to Playboard.

Among his ardent fans is award-winning Nigerian singer D’banj who tells CNN joining Eze’s morning prayers has become a routine.

“Waking up every day to NSPPD … has become part of my daily routine. I hardly miss it. It’s part of my family’s morning devotion,” adds D’banj, whose real name is Oladapo Daniel Oyebanjo.

The singer says he has had his own share of miracles from prayers on the platform.

“I remember last year Pastor Jerry said we should write seven things we want to see happen, and we prayed and I believed. I checked the list the other day and … all seven have been answered.”

Nollywood actress Tonto Dikeh says she also connected with Eze’s ministry early last year. She’s now “addicted,” she tells CNN.

Eze, who turns 40 on Monday, has come a long way from the days he and his single-parent mother struggled to find food to eat.

“I came from a family where poor people will describe my family as poor,” he says. “There were days my mum and I had no food to eat, and my mum would hold my hand and pray and give thanks to God. My mum was a single parent and a petty trader who sold groundnuts in the market … There were days she’d come home crying having not made any sales, so unable to buy us what to eat.”

Born on August 22, 1982, in Bende Local Government Area of Abia state, Eze tells CNN his education was funded by a benevolent couple who had noticed his active engagement in a church in his early years.

“I was just doing things in church like sweeping, singing, and reading the Bible – doing what most of my mates did not want to do. I had just finished junior secondary school at the time before they took me in,” he says of the couple.

Eze excelled in his studies and obtained a degree in history and international relations from Abia State University. He also went on to complete a master’s in human resource management.

Before venturing into ministry, Eze previously worked with a local TV station before joining the World Bank project for HIV/AIDS and later worked as a communications specialist with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

“I was very excited about the job (at the UNFPA), but my mum wasn’t. She said it wasn’t what God told her. According to her, God told her I was going to be a preacher,” says Eze.

“I never shared those aspirations (to be a preacher). I wasn’t even listening to her. She and I lived in poverty, so I always asked why God didn’t first help us out of poverty before asking me to quit a job that was giving us money to be a preacher. The money I was giving her was coming out of the job (with the UN), so it didn’t make sense.”

He eventually quit his job and entered full-time ministry but sadly his mother died of heart failure before he fulfilled her ambition for him, he says.

“It was when she died that the reality of my assignment began to dawn on me,” he adds.

Entering into full-time ministry has come with huge sacrifices and Eze says he spends long hours praying into the night to prepare.

“I don’t have friends, I don’t hang out, I don’t have spare time. I can’t tell what my hobbies are anymore because there’s no room for hobbies,” he says.

Eze has two children with his wife Eno, who is also a pastor. He said his marriage hasn’t been perfect due to the demands of ministry.

“It hasn’t been 100 percent, but because my wife and I do the same thing (ministry), we bond the same way. The things that matter to other people don’t matter in our family. Our conversations are about ministry and how next we’ll fulfill God’s will for our lives. If I had married the wrong woman, I’ll be boring the person.”

Eze may have become an internet phenomenon, but insists his fame is accidental.

He had started livestreaming hoping to inspire his congregation when the pandemic shut down all church services and attendance at his fledgling ministry, Streams of Joy International, dwindled.

“It wasn’t a goal to reach the world,” Eze says. “During the (peak of) Covid, there was a palpable fear everywhere and I noticed that a lot of my church people were very scared of coming around the church. So, every morning, my wife and I will come online, spreading encouragement to people,” he tells CNN.

“I just wanted to speak hope,” he adds.

Eze’s daily messages of encouragement later morphed into a daily online prayer network every weekday on YouTube and other video-sharing services.

The live streams proved a hit and now in its third year, Eze’s YouTube channel has 880,000 subscribers as of this publication, and his broadcasts have garnered more than 122 million views over a three-year period, according to figures from his channel.

Viewers from the UK and the US jointly make up 25% of his live streams on YouTube, with more than one million views from the UK and over 700,000 views from the US between July 20 and August 16, 2022, according to figures from the platform.

Nigeria has the highest with over two million viewers. His broadcasts are also viewed in other African nations and countries such as Italy, Germany, Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands, the chart showed.

Digital analyst Edward Israel-Ayide tells CNN Eze’s success can be linked to the “recent boom in digital churches and online religious movements.”

Israel-Ayide says this is because of the fallout from Covid-19.

“With lockdown restrictions in place, the need for community and a sense of belonging drove Nigerians at home and abroad to seek digital platforms that could provide them with direction and hope,” he says. “Post-Covid, many people are still seeking purpose and direction due to the socioeconomic challenges brought on by Covid-19 and the ongoing global economic crisis. This is one of the main reasons why religious movements like Pastor Jerry Eze’s NSPPD thrive.”

While many people now know him because of his online platform, “that’s not where it began,” Eze says. “There was a physical church before the online one.”

Eze founded the Streams of Joy International church in the suburbs of Nigeria’s eastern city of Umuahia many years before he shot to prominence.

Eze is now based in the Nigerian capital Abuja and his church has expanded beyond Nigeria to include branches in the UK, US and Canada.

Attendance in his Abuja church has also risen. But it is with the online community he has gained the most traction, and it is here to stay.

“People all over the world are accustomed to waking up and finding Pastor Jerry online,” Eze says. “It’s like a virus that has come stay.”

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CNN
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Afrobeats – the pulsating, fusion sound coming out of West Africa and the diaspora – has been on the rise globally for the better part of a decade. In recent years, the genre has gained a foothold in Western pop culture, and the Grammys are taking notice.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. recently said that the Grammys were considering adding an award category for Afrobeats. Speaking to reporters in Ghana over the weekend, Mason said he had been meeting with players in the genre to explore the possibility.

“We called in producers, songwriters, artists, executives and we had a virtual listening session where we heard from Afrobeats creators,” he said at a September 24 news conference. “[We] just talked about, ‘What are the different subgenres? What are the needs? What are the desires?’”

It would likely take a while for such a change to be made, though. Throughout the year, the Recording Academy – the group of music industry professionals that presents the Grammy Awards – accepts proposals for new categories from its members. Those proposals are then reviewed by a committee and voted on by the Recording Academy Board of Trustees.

For example, at an April 2021 meeting, the Recording Academy approved the addition of two new categories in the global and Latin music fields, but the change didn’t take effect the 2022 Grammys. This year, the Recording Academy announced five additional categories, including songwriter of the year and best score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media, which will take effect at the 2023 Grammys.

“My goal is to make sure that we represent all genres of music, including Afrobeats, at the Grammys. But it has to be done properly,” Mason said during the news conference. “I think the listening session last week was very important, very valuable, and a step towards that path.”

Afrobeats artists have crossed over into mainstream pop through collaborations with Beyoncé, Drake, Ed Sheeran and other stars. But they’ve also achieved mainstream success on their own. Burna Boy, Wizkid and Tems have each notched Grammy nominations (though they’ve typically been relegated to the global music field), while Burna Boy garnered a win in 2021 for his album “Twice as Tall.” CKay’s “Love Nwantiti” dominated on TikTok last year before eventually showing up on the Billboard charts.

The UK’s Official Charts Company launched an Afrobeats singles chart in 2020, while Billboard debuted a US-based Afrobeats chart this year, further nodding to the genre’s growth outside of Africa and the diaspora.

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CNN
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On a busy weekend in Freetown, Sierra Leone, dozens of people gather to watch an afternoon football match not unlike countless others you’d find anywhere else in the world. But there’s one striking difference – these players are all amputees.

They’re members of the Single Leg Amputee Sports Association (SLASA), an organization co-founded by pastor Mambud Samai in 2001 after he returned home toward the end of Sierra Leone’s deadly civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002 and killed at least 50,000 people across the country. Thousands more were left with missing limbs during a brutal campaign to terrify the civilian population.

After coming across a refugee camp filled with hundreds of amputees, Samai felt compelled to help. “At that time, there were no activities like trauma recovery for them. So, amputees believed that once they lost their limbs and their legs, they have no future, they have no opportunity. So, I volunteered myself to give them confidence,” he said.

While at the refugee camp, he met an American missionary who introduced him to a form of adaptive football. After showing the amputees how to play, the response was overwhelming and SLASA was formed, “to give hope to the amputees, to give confidence to the amputees, and to allow them to become ambassadors of peace,” Samai said.

According to the World Amputee Football Federation, players cannot use prosthetics and instead power across the field on crutches. Each team has seven players on the field at a time, with outfield players only having one leg and goalkeepers only having one arm.

Several SLASA players have since gone on to compete in international programs including the World Amputee Football Championships, Amputee Africa Cup of Nations, and the Open European Amputee Football Championship.

Related: Football saved his life. Now this former Ghana star is scouting the next generation of underprivileged talent

“Most of them are now very proud that they can represent their country at international competitions,” Samai said. “They are contributing something back to society.”

Samai says the sport is not only a good form of exercise, but it unites players and serves as a “therapy” for war victims to face their shared trauma. “We try to give them hope and then give them the credibility that they are useful, they are important to society,” he said.

Ali Badara Kamara is a goalkeeper in the SLASA league. He says he’s grateful for the life-changing opportunities he’s received. “My mother was afraid (for) me to play football because she sees me as an amputee. She thought that if I fell on the floor, I would have another problem,” he says. “But SLASA (has) taken me to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania.”

Kamara is one of the more than 80 million people with disabilities living across the continent. According to the United Nations, that figure includes those with mental health conditions, birth defects and other physical impairments. With assistive devices often unavailable or unaffordable, many find employment hard to come by and are left begging on the streets.

While football matches only last 90 minutes, Samai’s latest mission is to find a way to help amputees beyond the pitch.

“My passion (is) to make sure that every life, irrespective of your disability or irrespective of your background, that you are able to be happy and you are able to smile at the end of the day,” Samai said.

To achieve that, SLASA works closely with the National Rehabilitation Center in Sierra Leone and partners with international organizations like SwissLimbs to provide prosthetics for amputees and train local technicians.

In 2018, Samai traveled to Japan to study sustainable agriculture leadership and community development. Upon his return, he began offering classes on sustainable agriculture through SLASA.

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SLASA also assesses members’ education and provides learning resources to those in need. Its goal is to get more amputees off the streets and provide them with a safe way to make a living for themselves and their families.

To date, Samai says SLASA has directly assisted 350 amputees, and hopes to grow that number. The ultimate goal is to build a regulation pitch and rehabilitation center of its own.

“We want Sierra Leone to compete with another countries in terms of development,” Samai said. “We believe that disabled people should not be left behind.”

Watch the full episode of African Voices featuring Mambud Samai here.