Every week, OkayAfrica highlights the top African music releases — including the latest Afrobeats and amapiano hits — through our best music column, African Music You Need to Hear This Week.
Read ahead for our round-up of the best new African music tracks and music videos that came across our desks this week.
Zoë Modiga - “Something New”
Zoë Modiga has never been one to cower, never one to let fear take root in her yard. She deconstructs, inspects, and reassembles, shaping culture and shifting the needle with every bold move she undertakes. She has told us — and shown us — that greatness is a series of small, well-executed, well-intentioned steps. She walks tall on “Something New,” assured of her vision and staying true to her constant evolution. This work truly sounds like something new: a dash of cabaret, a healthy hint of electronic music, amapiano influences, and bass designed to melt your face. “You took me to another territory / might I say that that ride was bumpy,” she sings. It’s not a happy song, despite the whimsical music. It’s crying real tears while holding it together with a smile; it’s feeling undone, punctured by a person. She doesn’t hold back: “you made me out to be the enemy,” she continues, before absolving herself — “and hate is just not in my pedigree.” She caps it off with a wish for the future: “I hope if I find somebody, it’s not another you again.” The bass kicks in, and things lift: energy, movement, the burning desire to fully walk away, to collapse the old order. Produced by Modiga herself under the moniker themostrha, “Something New” is the first single from her forthcoming fourth album, The Vault.
Fatoumata Diawara - “Djanne”
News broke in January that Fatoumata Diawara now has her own signature Epiphone guitar, the Epiphone Fatoumata Diawara SG, making her the first woman of colour to receive the honour. It’s fitting. She has shredded her way through the rich guitar traditions of West Africa and onto a world stage that opened itself up to her, leading to collaborations with greats, from Herbie Hancock to Damon Albarn, through to Oumou Sangaré. “Djanne” finds her donning colourful beadwork traditionally associated with the Zulu people, as well as the isicholo hat worn by married Zulu women. She’s hip and funky as ever, the music serving as a portal through which she expresses herself fully to the world.
Tower - “Green”
On her official debut as an artist, “Green,” Ghanaian artist Tower masters the tortured, soul-drenching art perfected by the titans of country music, like Dolly Parton, and the doyennes of pop-punk rock, like Avril Levine. “I think about you, please, 27 out of 31 days a month / the rest is spent just dreaming about you,” she sings, invoking a well of pain—fountains gushing from every ventricle of the heart, flooding the body and its muscles with long-gone memories. She speaks of a haunting that captures the essence of grief: always hovering, waiting for the right moment to turn your day upside down.
RAPHA - “goodbye”
“Now that I’ve let you go, this is the happiest I’ve ever been,” declares RAPHA on “goodbye.” The Belgian-Congolese artist strips away pretence and, in doing so, finds freedom. It’s a song about healing, about locating the light after a long stretch of uncertainty. Leaning on a pop-rock-tilting sonic palette, “goodbye” is the kind of jam you’ll want to add to your road trip playlist.
Moliy, bees & hone - “Partygyal”
Moliy makes music for baddies and has been committed to the cause from the jump. “Partygyal” captures a lifestyle in audio form, confronting stereotypes and letting it rip. Alongside bees & honey — the five-songwriting, DJing, and production force that has quietly helped define the sound of modern pop, with credits for the likes of Tyla and Craig David — Moliy delivers one of the most charged songs of the year. Taking cues from Amaarae’s songbook, she gives us something that feels both spiritual and primed for the dance floor.
Shabaka - “Dance In Praise”
“Dance In Praise” sounds like raindrops trickling, one after the other, steadily toward a pond—forming estuaries of knowing, memory, remembrance, revolutionary love, and grace, grading the landscape with an overarching sense of renewal. It’s Shabaka’s fourth single in the lead-up to his album Of The Earth, out on March 6. “Within the process of compiling my beats, I had this idea that it would be cool to rap, but I hadn’t done it before. This became a really fulfilling exercise in approaching a new creative endeavour from scratch and trying to figure out what I’m guided towards,” he wrote in a post on his X account. And ‘rap’ he does, sort of, finding his way around the rousing, percussive immersion, traipsing across wind instruments while maintaining a firm lyrical footing that flows uninhibited.
LaCabra - “The Vision” (feat. A-Reece)
LaCabra’s debut album has been a long time coming. He’s given us more than enough to chew on — from work with his crew, The Qwellers, to his duo efforts with Lowfeye, and the countless singles that have become cult favrites in South Africa’s hip-hop underground. Mr Bully is 14 tracks of heart and soul, featuring a curated set of collaborators, from Nasty C to Blue Pappi, Satii, and Mnqobi Yazo. “The Vision” finds him joined by A-Reece for laid-back, exploratory raps. It lands, bounces, and regenerates, demanding multiple spins in one sitting.
Naaliyah - “feels like home”
Ethiopian-born and Stockholm-raised, Naaliyah straddles worlds. The singer-songwriter devotes herself to feeling the music rather than studying it, sensing riffs with her soul. “feels like home” is carried by a grounding bassline, guitars that intrude gently, like ever-shifting thoughts, and words that meditate on love and freedom—“it’s so easy to call you home,” she sings. She lists the things this love reminds her of: chamomile tea, watching DVDs, scraping your knees. She visualises love in warm, nostalgic tones and harmonises her way into a world of sound.
Kunmie - “Solace II” (feat. Joeboy)
A lone guitar riff is all you hear when “Solace II” begins, lingering until Joeboy joins with his voice. “I feel good when you are around me,” he sings, bearing his heart and trusting that someone out there is listening. Kunmie carried the song graciously when it was first released in January, and this addition gives it a future-proofed lift. Both artists refuse to retreat into a corner. Instead, they register their presence, ensuring their auras reflect the sombre, if hopeful, mood of the song.
