From the Shrine to the Stadium: How Afrobeats Carried Lagos Style to the World

Some fashion stories begin on a runway. This one begins in a nightclub in Lagos, travels through a Broadway theater and a baseball stadium in Queens, and arrives in the front row of a Paris menswear show. Along the way, West African music has become one of the most influential stages for clothes anywhere in the world.

Afrobeat, Afrobeats and the difference an “s” makes

The two terms are often confused, and they are not the same. Afrobeat, without the “s,” is the genre that developed in Nigeria in the 1960s and 1970s, blending highlife and Fuji music with American jazz and funk. The name was coined by Fela Kuti, who built it with his longtime drummer, Tony Allen.

Afrobeats, with the “s,” is a newer umbrella term for the popular music that grew out of Nigeria, Ghana and the United Kingdom in the 2000s and 2010s, mixing hiplife, highlife, dancehall, hip-hop, house and more. It is produced largely in Lagos, Accra and London, and it is the sound that went global in the late 2010s.

The Shrine

Fela Kuti performed regularly at his own club in Lagos, first called the Afro-Spot and later the Afrika Shrine. The performances were as visual as they were musical: his female singers and dancers, known as the Queens, were dressed colorfully and painted their bodies with makeup as part of the show.

The original Shrine is gone. Its successor, the New Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, is managed by Fela’s children Femi Kuti and Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti. It hosts Felabration, the annual festival marking Fela’s life and birthday, which Yeni Kuti pioneered in 1998. For anyone interested in how Lagos style connects to its music, it is a living landmark.

Lagos on Broadway

New York met that story on stage. Fela!, a musical about Fela Kuti’s life developed with the Afrobeat band Antibalas and the choreographer and director Bill T. Jones, began a Broadway run at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on November 22, 2009. It earned 11 Tony nominations, and its designer, Marina Draghici, won the 2010 Tony for Best Costume Design of a Musical. Draghici was born in Bucharest, Romania, and graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 1988, according to BroadwayWorld.

A sold-out night in Queens

More than a decade later, the music filled a stadium in the same city. On July 8, 2023, Burna Boy headlined Citi Field in Queens, home of the New York Mets. Rolling Stone reported that he became the first African artist to sell out a stadium show in the United States.

Recognition followed in the industry, too. The Recording Academy introduced a Grammy for Best African Music Performance in 2024, and its first winner was the South African singer Tyla, for “Water.”

Why fashion is paying attention

The audience growth made African musicians obvious partners for fashion houses, and the details matter for designers. In February 2023, Vogue Business reported that Burna Boy had performed at the Savage X Fenty Vol. 4 show and fronted Burberry’s festive campaign with Shakira. Burberry and United Talent Agency placed that campaign in the baggage hall of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 during “Detty December,” the season when the diaspora flies home to cities such as Lagos and Accra.

By September 2024, Vogue Business was describing a sharper shift. Burna Boy, WizKid, Rema, Uncle Waffles, Tems and Adekunle Gold sat front row at Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2025 men’s show in Paris, and Tyla performed at the house’s prelude to the Olympic Games. The same report noted that the London-based couturier Robert Wun dressed Tems for the 2023 Met Gala, his brand’s first custom look for the event.

What it means for African designers

The most important part of the story is not the luxury campaigns. It is what happens when a star wears a small label. In the 2023 Vogue Business report, Iretidayo Zaccheaus, founder of the West African streetwear convention Street Souk, described the effect of a major Nigerian artist wearing a young local brand on an international stage. “It can take you from being just a small brand selling 20 T-shirts to selling 1,000 T-shirts,” she said.

She also pointed to a newer shift: Nigerian artists taking their merchandise seriously, working with local streetwear brands on full collections rather than a single tour T-shirt. The Amsterdam streetwear label Daily Paper, which began as a music and culture blog in 2008, has built much of its identity on music collaborations, including a capsule collection for Wizkid’s Starboy in 2019.

For emerging designers, a few lessons stand out:

• Build relationships with stylists. Artists are dressed by teams, and stylists are often the first door.
• Be ready for the spike. A single performance can bring global attention. Have stock, sizing and shipping in place before you pitch.
• Tell your origin story clearly. Audiences connecting with African music are often looking for connection to place. Make yours easy to find.
• Think beyond the stage. Tour merchandise is becoming a real fashion category, with real budgets.

Read on: our guide to aso-oke and aso-ebi, Lagos’s ceremonial dress, and Africa’s fashion weeks and designers to know.

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Sources

• Wikipedia, “Afrobeats” (secondary; definitions and history)
• Wikipedia, “Fela Kuti” (secondary; Afrika Shrine, the Queens, Fela! production history, Felabration)
• Wikipedia, “New Afrika Shrine” (secondary; location and management)
• BroadwayWorld, “2010 Tony Awards: Marina Draghici Wins Best Costume Design of a Musical” (June 13, 2010)
• The American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards, 2010 winners
• Rolling Stone, “Burna Boy Performs at Citi Field: See Photos from the Concert” (July 10, 2023)
• Recording Academy (GRAMMY.com), “Tyla Won the Inaugural Best African Music Performance Category at the 2024 GRAMMYs”
• Vogue Business, “From Afrobeats to Amapiano: How music is uplifting African fashion” (Feb 8, 2023)
• Vogue Business, “International luxury brands wake up to the African music boom” (Sept 2, 2024)

Photo: “The New Afrika Shrine” by Comradeayobami, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Editor’s note: facts in this article were checked against the linked sources in October 2026. Campaign and front-row details are as reported by Vogue Business on the dates shown; the Street Souk quote is verbatim from that report. MOAM has no commercial relationship with any artist or brand named here.