Afrobeats and brands: renting a face, or creating with the scene

Brooklyn, 8 November 2025. The Kings Theatre is sold out. On stage: Asake, a conductor, Glenn Alexander II, and thirty-three musicians. The Nigerian singer revisits his repertoire, spanning fújì, afrobeats and amapiano, with strings and brass. Wizkid joins him. Then Gunna, Central Cee, Tiakola, Fridayy. The concert is called Red Bull Symphonic.

Red Bull presents Asake as the first African artist to headline this format in the United States, after Rick Ross in Atlanta in 2022 and Metro Boomin in Los Angeles in 2023. A month later, on 11 December, the whole concert, twenty-seven tracks, goes online on YouTube with Red Bull 1520. An unreleased track played that night, “Worship”, comes out as a single on 19 March 2026.

Look closely at what Red Bull did not do. No poster of Asake holding a can. No thirty-second ad. The brand built a stage, filmed it, and left the artist at the centre. Its name is in the title of the concert, not on the singer’s forehead.

Why every brand is looking to Lagos

The figures explain the appetite. According to Spotify, afrobeats streams on the platform grew by 550% between 2017 and 2022, passing 13 billion that year. In June 2023, the Recording Academy created a “Best African Music Performance” category at the Grammys. Tyla won it in 2024, Tems in 2025, then Tyla again in 2026.

One caveat, though, because it changes the way you decide. According to the IFPI, recorded music revenues in sub-Saharan Africa reached 120 million dollars in 2025, 78.1% of it from South Africa alone. The cultural influence of this music far outweighs its economic weight on the continent. A brand that commits to it buys attention and affection. It also enters a fragile economy, where every franc counts for the artists.

Two ways in

The first is the best known: the artist lends their face. In September 2021, Pepsi unveiled Rema and Ayra Starr as ambassadors in Nigeria. In June 2021, Martell made Davido the face of a campaign. In April 2025, Pandora named Tyla an ambassador. Asake himself has taken this route: in November 2022, a sports betting company named him its ambassador in Nigeria. The principle is simple. The brand rents fame, and fame turns heads towards the product.

The second takes more patience: creating with the scene. Coca-Cola has done it since 2013 with Coke Studio Africa, a show based in Nairobi where artists from several countries compose together. Red Bull has done it for a long time. In 2003, its Red Bull Music Academy was held in Cape Town, and Black Coffee was among the participants. More recently, Red Bull Symphonic settled in South Africa for three editions in a row: Kabza De Small in 2024, Kelvin Momo in 2025, then Sun-El Musician and Dlala Thukzin in June 2026, with one night broadcast live on SABC 1.

Neither route is shameful. They do not answer the same question. The first says: look at me next to him. The second says: here is what we made together.

Renting a face gives you a peak. Building a stage gives you a place.

And here at home?

In Cameroon, brands did not wait for afrobeats to get into music. Mützig Star, the national singing contest run by Brasseries du Cameroun, held its 32nd edition in 2022. Orange Cameroun launched Orange Music Talents in July 2025, with Ben Decca, Elvis Kemayo, Sandrine Nnanga and Locko as coaches. In 2014, MTN Cameroon ran Make the Music. The winner was Salatiel. In 2019, he could be heard on Beyoncé’s album The Lion King: The Gift. In June 2026, he sat on the jury of the second season of Orange Music Talents.

I like this loop. It shows that a brand contest can launch a career, and that the career then comes back to feed the scene. What is most often missing is not the will. It is longevity, co-production, and what remains once the talent show is over: a work that is filmed, broadcast, and lives on after the night itself. That is exactly what Red Bull did in Brooklyn.

Three costly mistakes

The first: not paying for the music. In 2021, after the worldwide success of “Jerusalema”, the song’s rights holders demanded licences from organisations that had used it for their image, in Europe as well as in South Africa. In Cameroon too, in 2022, collective management organisations were claiming copyright arrears from large companies for the use of musical works. Respecting a scene starts with the licence, the credit and the payment.

The second: getting the name wrong. The word “afrobeats” itself is disputed. As early as 2019, an OkayAfrica opinion piece criticised it for flattening distinct genres under a label designed for Western audiences, and Burna Boy rejects the label. Here, the scene goes by makossa, bikutsi, mbolé, rap, urban music. Pasting a word from Lagos or London onto Douala means speaking with other people’s vocabulary.

The third: forgetting that choosing an artist means choosing their context. Their label changes: Asake left YBNL and launched his own label, Giran Republic, in February 2025, nine months before Brooklyn. Their associations matter: a brand’s category colours the artist, and the artist colours the brand. Their audience has expectations. Before signing, check who represents them today, what their audience expects of them, and what your brand is going to make them carry.

Longevity, and its limit

Let’s be honest to the end. Even Red Bull pulls out. Its Music Academy closed in 2019, and Red Bull Records ceased operations at the end of 2025, after eighteen years. A brand that supports a scene must say how long it will stay. A scene that depends on a single brand is taking a risk. Both know it. They rarely say so.

How we look at the problem

When the question “do we need an artist?” lands on the table, we do not answer straight away. We start with a coffee, then with your audiences. What do they really listen to, and where? Who already speaks to them in their own words? Does your brand have something to bring to the scene, a venue, know-how, distribution, or only a cheque? Do you want a peak in awareness, or a lasting place? Are you willing to let the artist stay at the centre?

Sometimes the answer is a campaign with an artist. Sometimes, a programme that runs for several seasons. Sometimes, neither: a single word changed on a poster. Culture is not a backdrop we add everywhere. It is a way of looking at your problem.

The house also has a Kase, mystiK Music: a talent label between Africa and the United States. We know the weight of an artist’s career. That is one more reason never to treat music as background sound.

Brooklyn showed that a brand can give African music a stage. For yours, the question remains wide open: what will you build with the people your audiences already listen to?