Afrobeat is a term with no solid definition, like punk, rock, or soul, although it may be all three of those things. No one knows who first used the word, but as far as history is concerned, it belongs to Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the late Nigerian giant through whom any understanding of the sound of 1970s Africa must pass. In the most limited sense, you could say that Afrobeat is the cinematic, polyrhythmic, symphonic funk sound that Fela developed with superhuman drummer Tony Allen, but it’s much more than that.
