South Africans knock Spotify for using Davido as Amapiano playlist cover

Some South Africans on social media have called out Spotify for using Davido, the Afrobeats singer, as the cover for Amapiano playlist on its streaming platform.

Amapiano is a style of house music that emerged in South Africa in 2012. It is a hybrid of deep house, jazz, lounge music, and wide percussive basslines.

The genre is distinguished by high-pitched piano melodies, Kwaito basslines, low-tempo 90s South African house rhythms, and percussions from another local subgenre of house music known as Bacardi.

Afrobeats, on the other hand, is a music genre commonly adopted by West African artistes. It gained popularity in the early 2000s.

Spotify recently unveiled Davido as the cover for the playlist of the South African music genre and captioned it ‘Amapiano To The World’.

The streamer added: “Join the global amapiano movement with tracks and artists pushing amapiano on the global stage. Cover: Davido”.

The development, however, did not sit too well with a lot of South African music lovers; some of whom took to X to register their annoyance at Spotify.

“@Spotify What is this why are you mixing Amapiano with other genres, whoever you got to compile this playlist must be fired & you should hire a South African to compile these playlists, there is Amapiano Afrobeats and Afroyano dont mix them into one thing and say its Amapiano,” a user wrote.

“@Spotify am canceling my subscription with immediate effect. Amapiano was born and bred in SA,” another user wrote.

Here are some of the reactions below:

@Spotify the disrespect you have towards SA artists when it comes to Amapiano is irritating! It’s like your researchers don’t even try ai?

— (@TheRealBandisa) November 26, 2023

Dear @Spotify , Amapiano is a SOUTH AFRICAN ORIGINAL GENRE, none of it has ANY connection to Nigeria whatsoever, so plis https://t.co/0dg9pW1QC6

— The Singing Author (@AshleyBluJayR) November 25, 2023

@Spotify am canceling my subscription with immediate effect. Amapiano was born and bred in SA.

— Skoenpampier (@nulified_void) November 25, 2023

@Spotify why you put a Nigerian as the face of a South African sound?

— Siya (@ADS_ZAR) November 25, 2023

@Spotify What is this why are you mixing Amapiano with other genres, whoever you got to compile this playlist must be fired & you should hire a South African to compile these playlists, there is Amapiano Afrobeats and Afroyano dont mix them into one thing and say its Amapiano pic.twitter.com/AVLeErjOn0

— BROEWELLA MAAN (@SpitMochene) November 25, 2023

Nigerian artist is Amapiano 's cover on Spotify pic.twitter.com/64n1nZy8Xg

— Hermaine M (@HermaineM) November 25, 2023

They stealing Amapiano from us the same way they stole Afrobeats from Ghanaians. https://t.co/9584M2dGaf

— Paballo (@paballo_maseko) November 25, 2023

Na South Africa get Amapiano but na Nigerians wan use am collect Grammy award pic.twitter.com/zVkkVvIc8h

— BOY O’ BOY (@GEORGETOGZD) November 24, 2023

nigerians are lowkey the bullies of africa

we snatched “pon pon” from ghana that year, snatched “azonto” too
went to SA and snatched “amapiano”

and we end up looking like the orginators cos none of them can fight our musical reach internationally

— michael (@mc_rhymz) November 23, 2023

Nigerians and their superiority complexwtf do y'all mean Nigerians made Amapiano genre global?
Reaping what you didn't sow is crazy

You can't steal and take away amapiano from SA that's part of their identity
If you like try it will still not jig https://t.co/uHWztkh27K

— Bambina 𝕏 (@Bambina1908) November 23, 2023