Nigeria artiste Burna Boy is the first international Afrobeats artist to reach number one in the UK with his "I Told Them Album...", Britain's Official Charts Company announced on Friday.
The Nigerian-born global star, real name Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, went straight to the top of the UK charts with his fifth full-length release.
He came close to gaining recognition with last year's Love, Damini, which peaked at number two in the UK Albums Chart.
Homegrown British Afrobeats talent such as J Hus have hit the charts, but Burna Boy is the first foreign artist to do so.
The work is a sign of the continued rise of the Afrobeats genre in the UK and worldwide, as artists such as Wizkid and Davido also enjoy mainstream success and increasingly form segments of popular culture. Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot praised Burna Boy for "paving the way" and "an amazing achievement".
"British music fans have always been known for their love of new music and cultures from around the world, and the explosion of interest in Afrobeats music culture over the last decade is a tangible example of this," he said.
Afrobeats takes its name from the Afrobeat music genre that exploded in Nigeria in the 1970s, popularized by music icon Fela Kuti.
Western audiences discovered this scene in 2016 thanks to the hit "One Dance" with Canadian superstar Drake and Wizkid.
The song rose in popularity to secure its place as the most streamed song of all time on Spotify, surpassing one billion streams. Apart from Nigerian stars like Burna Boy and Wizkid who have millions of social media followers, Ghanaian musicians are also in the global spotlight.
Gyakie and Joey B have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, while KiDi, Sarkodie and Shatta Wale, who enjoyed success with Beyonce and Major Lazer in 2020, are also visible.
