Funbi serenades

Nigerians have experienced different genres of music, with Afrobeat arguably the most popular. However, in recent times we have seen artists call their music genre Afrobeats. So what difference does an ’s’ make?

Yeni Kuti, daughter of late Afrobeat musician and activist, Fela, has called on young Nigerian artistes to stop referring to their sound as Afrobeat. The daughter of the late legendary musician, who passed on 20 years ago, expressed her discontent recently.

Thursday nights are known as Lagos nights in downtown Johannesburg when Nigerian Afro-beat musician Femi Koya takes to the stage - bringing together sounds from different parts of the continent to create his own style, while still paying homage to the genre's greats.

Male vocalist Funbi is a soul singer and storyteller whose essence captures the past, highlights the present, and sets the standard for the next generation of Afrobeat sounds.

Actor and jazz musician Jeff Goldblum serenades FRANCE 24 on the Champs-Élysées

Pioneering Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, a co-founder of the Afrobeat musical genre, died in Paris on Thursday aged 79, his manager says. Eric Trosset told NPR radio that he had died of a heart attack.

Against the backdrop of rock-cut tombs and sand-swept ruins, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli regales revellers in an ancient Saudi desert city at the centre of the kingdom's tourism push. Bocelli performed alongside family members at UNESCO World Heritage site Hegra in the kingdom's Al-Ula governorate, a long-isolated area seen widely as an open-air museum.

Nigerian star Fela Kuti is one of the 20th century's musical pioneers. He not only created Afrobeat, which combines free jazz, funk and multiple musical genres from West Africa, but was also politically active.