Afro nation announce their phase 1 lineup, for their summer festival set to take place between the 1st and 3rd of July 2022 in the Algarve Portimao, Portugal.
Afro Nation is a festival that celebrates afrobeat and is the self-proclaimed “World biggest afrobeat festival”. The festival organiser is a London promoter named Smade, the 34-year-old who made his way up as a promoter for afrobeat events around London.
Afro nation is billed as the festival to celebrate the African diaspora and brings afrobeat fans from all over Europe to their festival, their debut festival in 2019 had an attendance of 15,000 and featured artists from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Jamaica, the US and the UK.
In July 2020 made a real impact o the UK music industry as alongside the official charts company the company introduced the UKs official afrobeat charts. The chart is unveiled every Sunday and after its first year it became the most popular genre rundown for 18-24-year-old users of officialcharts.com.
The phase 1 lineup for the upcoming festival features headliners Burna Boy, Wizkid and meg the stallion, as well as 27 other artists including standouts, Tems, Beanie man, Ckay, Rema and Naira Marley.
The headliners Wizkid and Burna Boy are arguably the two biggest artists in the afrobeat genre, the pair both hail from Nigeria. Wizkid recently became the first African artist to have a certified platinum single in the US with his track “Essence” alongside Nigerian songstress and fellow afro nation performer Tems. Burna boy has also become a global heavyweight in recent years having one back to back Grammys in 2020 and 2021 for best global music album for his projects Twice as tall.
The other standout performer announces on the festivals phase 1 lineup is Nigerian singer Tems, who continues going from strength to strength at only 26 the singer has worked alongside Drake, Brent Faiyaz and Wizkid while showcasing to the world her immense vocal ability.
CKay is another Nigerian artist on the lineup with a bright future, the artist whose track “Love, Nwantiti” has catapulted him with the help of social media site Tiktok. The song which was released over a year ago was used over a million times on Tiktok and helped CKay gain over 100 million views on the Youtube video and over 150 million streams on Spotify.
Naira Marley is the only UK artist announced on the phase1 lineup but definitely won’t be the last, the 30 years spent his younger years between Lagos and Peckham and in 2014 he dropped his breakthrough song “Marry Juana”, and introduced an afrobeat sound to a UK rap scene that had not heard the west African melodies and language mixing with the darker beats and visuals of the UK rap scene.
Tickets for Afro Nation 2022 are not available to purchase now but you can sign up for priority access here.
