Afroswing

Afroswing is a British genre that emerged in London in the mid-2010s, blending the rhythms of West African Afrobeats with Jamaican dancehall, R&B melody and the slang and attitude of UK rap. Its tracks are mid-tempo and bouncy, built on syncopated, percussion-heavy grooves, with half-sung, half-rapped vocals soaked in Auto-Tune and lyrics that switch between London street talk, Jamaican patois and West African pidgin. J Hus, producer Jae5, Kojo Funds, Not3s, Yxng Bane, MoStack and NSG are its best-known names; it is also called afrobashment.

The names around it are easy to mix up. Afrobeat (no "s") is Fela Kuti's 1970s Nigerian big-band fusion; Afrobeats is the 2010s pop wave from Nigeria and Ghana; afroswing is what young Black Britons, many of them children of West African and Caribbean families, built from both, plus the sounds of their own city. This guide covers its history, sound and artists, and how it differs from its neighbours. To check how a track reads to a machine, drop a clip into our free AI music genre detector.

Afroswing is a UK-born style of urban pop. It sits between three traditions that were all part of everyday life in London's Black communities by the 2010s: the Nigerian and Ghanaian pop music of Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy, the Jamaican dancehall heard at "bashment" parties, and the domestic rap lineage of grime and road rap. From Afrobeats it takes rhythm and melody; from dancehall, flow patterns and patois; from UK rap, the slang, the accent and the street perspective; from R&B, the sung hooks and romantic themes.

The name is usually credited to the rapper Kojo Funds, and the producer Juls pushed it too. In the usual explanation, "afro" comes from Afrobeats and "swing" from the way the drums swing between R&B and dancehall patterns; it has nothing to do with swing jazz. The alternative name afrobashment stresses the dancehall side. At the time some artists and journalists also used "Afro-B", "Afrobeats" or simply "UK rap" for the same records, and Birmingham's Lotto Boyzz called their version "afrobbean".

It is a close cousin of Afrobeats and grew up alongside it. A useful shorthand: Afrobeats is music made in West Africa for a global audience; afroswing is music made in London that answers it in a British voice. Since the late 2010s the line between them has blurred as Nigerian, Ghanaian and British artists keep recording together. See our hub on Afropop for the wider African pop picture.

West African music had been part of London nightlife for decades, but the 2010s brought it to the centre of British youth culture. Around 2011–2013 the Ghanaian azonto dance craze spread through UK parties and the internet, and British-Ghanaian artist Fuse ODG took it into the charts with "Antenna", which reached number 7 in 2013. Rappers from the road-rap and grime scenes began experimenting with Afrobeats rhythms; Sneakbo, from Brixton, is often mentioned as an early example. Before that, the UK funky scene of the late 2000s, an offshoot of UK garage with artists such as Donae'o, had been the first British club style to put African-derived percussion into the mainstream.

The style that came to be called afroswing took shape around 2015–2016. J Hus, who grew up in Stratford in East London, had a widely watched GRM Daily freestyle in 2014, and his 2015 single "Dem Boy Paigon" became a club hit; he mixed rapped verses with sung, Afrobeats-inflected hooks, which was still unusual in UK rap. His work with producer Jae5 set the template. Kojo Funds broke through in 2016 with "Dun Talkin'" featuring Abra Cadabra, and Not3s, Yxng Bane, MoStack and Belly Squad brought their own versions to YouTube channels such as GRM Daily, Link Up TV and Mixtape Madness, which in that period did more than radio to launch new UK artists.

The breakthrough year was 2017. J Hus's debut album Common Sense, produced largely by Jae5, was released to strong reviews, reached the top ten of the UK Albums Chart, stayed on the chart for more than 90 weeks and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize; its single "Did You See" reached number 9 on the UK Singles Chart. Not3s's "My Lover" with Mabel and Yxng Bane's singles followed into the charts, and in 2018 Yxng Bane, Not3s, WSTRN and Hardy Caprio played SXSW in Texas. By then afroswing and the rising UK drill scene were the two main sounds of British street music. Drake's "One Dance" (2016), featuring Nigerian star Wizkid and built on a sample of British singer Kyla's 2008 UK funky track "Do You Mind", had already shown that a London–Lagos–Toronto mix could top charts worldwide.

By the turn of the 2020s many afroswing artists had moved on, collaborated across the Atlantic, or settled into a broad, commercially successful "UK Afro" pop sound. The group NSG, the rapper-singer Darkoo and many others kept the format alive, and J Hus's later albums Big Conspiracy (2020) and Beautiful and Brutal Yard (2023) both reached number one in the UK. Today the term is used both for that mid-2010s wave and, more loosely, for any British music mixing Afrobeats, dancehall and rap.

What an afroswing record typically sounds like:

• Tempo: most tracks sit somewhere around 95–110 BPM, the mid-tempo range shared with Afrobeats and much dancehall, though the genre is defined more by melody and drum pattern than by a fixed tempo.
• Rhythm: a syncopated, swung groove built from Afrobeats-style percussion (shakers, congas and toms, rim clicks, layered claps). The producer Steel Banglez has described the snare landing on the third beat, as in Afrobeats, where hip-hop puts it on the fourth.
• Harmony: short loops of two to four chords, often in minor keys, played on warm synths, plucked guitar or marimba-like keys; usually bright and melodic.
• Bass: round, rubbery sub-bass that follows the groove, without the long sliding 808s of trap or drill.
• Vocals: the defining ingredient, a fluid mix of rapping and singing, often in the same verse, heavily treated with Auto-Tune, with melodic, triplet-based flows borrowed from dancehall.
• Language: London slang (Multicultural London English) mixed with Jamaican patois and Nigerian or Ghanaian pidgin.
• Themes: romance and flirtation, partying, money and success, with street references kept lighter than in drill or grime.

How it compares with the styles around it:

Afroswing is a producer-led sound made in software studios. Jae5's work with J Hus is the reference point: sparse arrangements, warm keyboard loops, shuffled percussion and plenty of space around the voice, often with live guitar touches. Other London producers, among them Blairy Hendrix, Joshua Beatz and Steel Banglez, worked in the same vein, and "afroswing type beat" became a common tag for instrumentals on YouTube.

Typical building blocks are a programmed percussion bed (shakers, congas, cowbells, rimshots) that carries most of the groove; a kick that lands off the main beat; a melodic loop on synth, guitar, kalimba or steel-drum-like presets; and a vocal chain with pitch correction pushed until it becomes part of the melody. Compared with drill and grime, afroswing mixes are lighter and brighter, with less low-mid weight and fewer aggressive elements.

A starting list, with the record that shows each artist best:

Afroswing put African-rooted pop made by British artists into the UK charts. It changed what UK rap sounded like in the late 2010s, bringing sung hooks and bright production into a scene that had been dominated by grime and darker road rap, and its artists became regular collaborators of Nigerian and Ghanaian stars: J Hus's Big Conspiracy (2020) features Burna Boy, and Beautiful and Brutal Yard (2023) has him again. The same years also produced amapiano in South Africa and the Afro house boom in European clubs, and British artists have moved freely between all of them.

Most of its artists are second-generation Britons of West African or Caribbean heritage (J Hus's parents are Gambian), and the music mixes the sounds of both family backgrounds with London speech. African and Caribbean in rhythm and London in voice is still the simplest way to recognise it.

What is afroswing?

What is the difference between afroswing and Afrobeats?

Is afroswing the same as Afrobeat?

Who started afroswing?

What BPM is afroswing?

Why is it called afroswing?