MR EAZI'S GLOBAL DANCE PARTY

An Afrobeats star delivers a personal album with PanAfrican scope and universal purpose

- JON DOLAN

Mr Eazi has been a leading figure in the world of Afrobeats for years, and he’s always had an expansive definition of that ever-rising music’s sonic and cultural possibilities. The Nigerian-born artist, who now mainly lives in Accra, Ghana, has collaborated with Beyoncé and Diplo, and among his most popular songs is a 2019 cut with J Balvin and Bad Bunny. In fact, as Afrobeats’ profile has grown, he’s bristled at broad catchall genre terms to characterize music from throughout Africa, arguing for less reductive treatment.

“I think it is unfair to even put everything [in] Afropop,” he recently told Rolling Stone. “Korean pop is pop music from Korea. We’re not calling it ‘Asia pop.’ ”

A sense of Mr Eazi as both a curator and an ambassador is all over his new album, The Evil Genius,