Afrobeats BPM

How fast, and who says so

Where the two sources overlap: 100–115 BPM. Each in its own words:

• Soundtrap, How to Make Afrobeats (2024): 95–115 BPM
• Elephorm, Cheatsheet de production Afrobeats, Amapiano et Afro house (2026): 100–115 BPM

The groove on this page

Afrobeats is carried by the percussion, not by the kick. Here a 3–2 clave on the rim runs across two bars, three hits then two; the kick stays light, on one and three with a soft push on the and of four; a soft clap marks two and four; the shaker runs in 16ths, louder on the e and the a of each beat, everything swung at 58 %. Wikipedia names the 3–2 or 2–3 clave, in 4/4, as the genre's common rhythm.

On this page: the app's Woody kit at 105 BPM, swing 58 %.

Delay and LFO values

A delay in time with the track repeats once per note value: a quarter note lasts 60,000 divided by the BPM, in milliseconds. Dotted is one and a half times that, triplet two thirds. An LFO synced to a note value cycles at 1,000 divided by those milliseconds, in Hz. The table follows the tempo above: − and + move it, and so does a tempo you tap.

Genres near this tempo

• Pop: 80–104 BPM
• Amapiano: 110–115 BPM
• House: 115–130 BPM
• Deep house: 120–125 BPM

All twenty genres on one axis, with 105 BPM marked: the BPM chart.

What BPM is afrobeats?

100 to 115 BPM, with half of all tracks between 99 and 116. That is Mixgraph's count of 242 afrobeats tracks (read October 2026), which also gives a median of 110, a mean of 108 and nine in ten between 93 and 123. Producers start at 105 to 110 and move a few BPM to fit the vocal. Under 100 is the slower, romantic side; past 120 it meets Afro house, which runs at house tempo.

Afrobeats songs and their BPM

Tempos from Mixgraph and jog.fm, October 2026. A track listed at half or double (55, 210) is the same groove counted on a different drum: tap the kick and the clap, not the shaker. Playlists titled 140 BPM gather faster dance-challenge tracks (Gwara Gwara, Pilolo) or are counted at double; tap one on the pad before you trust the label.

Afrobeat drum pattern, step by step

The groove on this page, steps of 16 per bar, counted 1 e and a:

Tiger Sounds' afrobeats guide (2026) gives a kick that rolls more: steps 1, 4, 7, then 9, 12, 15, a 3+3+2 figure in each half bar, under a rim or soft clap on two and four at 70 to 80 % velocity. On top go three to five interlocking percussion parts, congas, talking drum, cowbell or woodblock, each on its own one- or two-bar pattern; Sound on Sound quotes Burna Boy's mix engineer Jesse Ray Ernster saying artists want that percussion upfront, "sometimes way above the vocal".

Afrobeat or afrobeats?

Two kinds of music. Afrobeat, no s, is Fela Kuti's: Nigeria in the late 1960s and 70s, a big band, long tracks, jazz and funk horns, Tony Allen's drumming and lyrics against the government. Afrobeats, with the s, is the West African pop that grew in the 2000s and 2010s out of highlife, hiplife, dancehall, hip-hop and UK house, built in a DAW around a vocal. The name came from London: DJ Abrantee used it for his Choice FM show from April 2011 (Wikipedia, Afrobeats). Burna Boy calls his music Afro-fusion; Wizkid, Davido and Tems chart on Billboard's U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart (since 2022), whatever they call it themselves.

Who made afrobeats big

D'banj's Oliver Twist reached number 9 in the UK in 2012 and opened the charts to the sound. Wizkid sang on Drake's One Dance (2016), a Hot 100 number one; his Essence with Tems (2021) reached number 9 there. Rema and Selena Gomez's Calm Down reached number 3 on the Hot 100 in 2023, and Burna Boy's I Told Them... (2023) went to number one on the UK albums chart, an afrobeats first. The Grammys added Best African Music Performance in 2024: Tyla won it that year, Tems in 2025. Davido, Tiwa Savage, Asake and Ayra Starr belong on any short list.

Is it Jamaican? No. Afrobeats is Nigerian and Ghanaian at the root and was named in London; Jamaican dancehall is one of its ingredients. Afroswing, the UK style J Hus brought up from about 2014, mixes afrobeats with road rap and dancehall and is a different genre.

Amapiano, Afro house, dancehall: the tempos next door

Amapiano, from South Africa, runs a little faster, 110 to 115 by Splice's count, and is carried by the log drum, a short pitched bass hit that many afrobeats songs now borrow. Afro house runs at house tempo, about 120 and up, with the kick on every beat. Dancehall runs at about 85 to 110 (Orphiq, What Is Dancehall?, 2026), near reggaeton, whose dembow rhythm came out of Jamaica in Shabba Ranks' Dem Bow (1990). Most dance music sits at 115 to 130 (house, dance-pop); afrobeats dances slower, at 100 to 115. For afrobeats, 120 is the fast end and 70 is too slow to dance to: a track listed at 70 is worth tapping yourself.

Then make something of it

The door opens Brumm, a club track with a beat and a bass, with this groove's low end in it. The app runs between 90 and 150 BPM, so a tempo outside goes in at half or double, or at the nearest end when neither fits. No account, no upload: it travels inside the link. Hum a line over it, and it becomes an instrument.

Nothing is recorded: no microphone, only your taps, counted in the browser. The groove's sounds are the app's own samples, fetched when you tap Play. How the site counts visits.