This is the Pitchfork Review.

I'm Puget Patel, the editor of Pitchfork.

Today, we're here with Joey Aiken, a critic and the publisher of the Afrobeats Intelligence newsletter,

and Pitchfork staffer Monkaber Conte.

Hey, guys.

Hey, Monkapur here. Hello, Joey here. You're calling in from

where, Joey? I'm calling in from Lagos, Nigeria. Today we're going to be talking about the rise of

Afrobeats, which is the latest international sound to infiltrate the American consciousness.

It's a complicated catch-all of a term to describe a cluster of

music genres born from West Africa. You might recognize the songs and sounds of Afrobeats and everything

from club hits to music from artists like Drake and Beyonce. Joey, you've been part of this

scene for years, and I'm so glad to have you here. I'm wondering if you could give us some stylistic

features of Afrobeats, or, you know, songs that we can hear the Afrobeats influence on.

Afro bits is a very interesting genre. It's one of the genres that, you know, it's filled a lot of

adaptability, and, you know, every day is different and it keeps moving.

The very nature of affibates is a bit of a sponge.

It absorbs everything, so there's a bit of everything in it.

But what you would know, what defines it mostly is the polyrhythmic drummins.

There's a lot of heavy drumming in it.

There's also a bit of a

page and English dialects used and some traditional local dialects like Yorba, Igbo. And then

there's a huge emphasis on melody. Meloddy is very big in alphabet. And example of songs where you

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