YEMI ALADE

OkayAfrica's 100 Women celebrates African women who are making waves, shattering ceilings, and uplifting their communities.

Yemi Alade is at the top of her game in a male-dominated market, and there's no denying that she's killing it as an international hit-maker. Nigeria’s afropop queen is a BET award nominee, who had a breakthrough with the 2015 hit song, "Johnny." Two months after the video debuted on YouTube, the clip gained almost one million views. To date, it has amassed over 60 million views. "Johnny" became such a smash hit that the Grammy Museum in LA displayed Alade's costume from the music video.

Alade is the fifth of seven children from her father, a police commissioner who is Yoruba, and her mother who is Igbo. She earned her degree in geography from the University of Lagos, and has since moved on to singing. With 1.7 million Instagram followers, Alade is a popular act worldwide who recently signed a deal with Close-Up Toothpaste.

-MB

We speak with Yemi Alade where she speaks to us about navigating the male-dominated Afrobeats space and more in the video below:

Popular

Photo: Courtesy of Saphir Niakadie

Meet Four Women Pushing Ivorian Art Forward Through Photography

These young and emerging female photographers from Côte d'Ivoire are shaking up Abidjan's art scene.

There's been a tremendous amount of awe-inspiring art coming from the African continent lately. Photography is no exception. It is one of the most powerful tools used in changing the way in which the West perceives Africa and its diaspora and perhaps the reason why contemporary photography is thriving.

The female gaze is paramount to the way in which the aforementioned visual stories are told and the female photographers here are using their camera lenses to give us glimpses of lands, peoples, histories, and futures unknown. Their individual experiences and perspectives are widening the scope of what is believed to be Côte d'Ivoire. Within the country's capital, Abidjan, there's a creative scene that seems to have sprawled up out of nowhere yet is so rich in its offerings.

Keep reading... Show less

popular.

Meet Nigeria’s All-Female Bikers Club, Featured In Darey's Latest Video