Journey of the Beats premiered exclusively on Showmax last Thursday, 23 June 2022. The 10-part documentary series produced by creative entrepreneur and the creator of Storm Records, Obi Asika, tells a once-in-a-lifetime story that explores the origin and evolution of Afrobeats and black music.
Watch the trailer for Journey of the Beats:
Each episode of the series is complemented by a Spotify playlist. Episode One: Origins and the Switch Up is curated by Ed Keazor, co-director and producer on Journey of the Beats and a historian, lawyer and musician.
This Spotify playlist of 103 songs straddles the grooves that made Nigeria dance from the dawn of time, with traditional drum and melodic tunes, through to the birth of modern popular music in the 1920s.
Find the Spotify playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6zYlHpavDbsI8RpQJ5zbyC
The playlist covers the birth of highlife music, through to the influence of Latin and Caribbean genres like rhumba and calypso, US jazz, soul, RnB and funk, as well as the birth of a uniquely Nigerian sound, with juju, highlife, Fuji, and Afrobeat.
Each episode of Journey of the Beats is told through the lens of music historians and some of Nigeria’s most prominent artists, like 2Baba, P-Square, Onyeka Onwenu, Daddy Showkey, Flavour, and D’Banj. The series goes behind the scenes to shed light on the Afrobeats movement that has taken the world by storm.
New episodes of the music documentary will drop every Friday exclusively on Showmax. Afrobeats fans, documentary lovers and anyone who appreciates music can subscribe to watch the docuseries on www.showmax.com from as low as N1,200.
