For a city that lives and breathes rhythm, Lagos has always been more than just a backdrop to African music; it is its beating heart. This year, the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) is making an emotional homecoming. After touring the continent and holding ceremonies in cities like Dakar and Accra, AFRIMA returns to Lagos, its cradle and creative motherland, with what organizers and the Nigerian government promise will be “the best edition yet.”
But this isn’t just an awards show. It’s a statement. A reclamation of cultural ownership, a resetting of the narrative, and a long-overdue recognition of the role Lagos and Nigeria have played in shaping global African music. With the full backing of the Federal Government, AFRIMA 2025 won’t just be a celebration of sound, but a geopolitical declaration: Africa’s music revolution is not only here, it’s headquartered in Nigeria.
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This homecoming has layers. It’s symbolic, spiritual, and strangely full circle. AFRIMA was born in Lagos in 2014, an ambitious dream to create a platform that celebrates pan-African music talent on a global scale. In the years that followed, it became a continental tour de force, giving visibility to artists from Cape Town to Cairo. But somewhere in that journey, it also felt like Nigeria, the biggest exporter of Afrobeats and its sub-genres, was sharing the stage it helped build. That’s about to change. The decision to bring AFRIMA back home was strategic and deeply personal. In a press briefing last week, Nigeria’s Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, called it “a national cultural priority.” She wasn’t exaggerating. For a nation whose music economy has become a global force, AFRIMA's return feels like a coronation. Wizkid, Burna Boy, Tems, Davido, all household names from this soil, have gone on to win Grammys, sell out stadiums, and become the soundtrack of a generation. But here’s the twist: the story isn’t just about the stars. It’s about the soil they came from.
In Lagos, talent is currency, but survival is an art. The streets of Ojuelegba, the beaches of Tarkwa Bay, the chaos of Oshodi, these aren’t just locations, they are lyrical archives. AFRIMA 2025 will be staged in this raw, rhythmic landscape, and that alone promises a show unlike any before. Organizers are already planning a multi-day cultural experience that goes beyond the glitz of red carpets. Expect street music festivals, pop-up art markets, fashion collaborations, and conversations with the icons and the unsung. Lagos isn’t just hosting AFRIMA, it’s embodying it. What sets this year apart isn’t just the location or the promise of better visuals and production quality. It’s the emotion behind it. For many Nigerian artists, producers, and fans, this is not just another gig. It’s a home game. A chance to show the world not only what we’ve created but where it all began. For once, global media will cover the story from inside the studio apartments, the roadside recording shacks, and the endless traffic that has birthed a million melodies.
And the timing couldn’t be more poetic. 2025 marks a decade since AFRIMA first lit up the stage in Lagos. Since then, African music has broken boundaries: dominating charts, influencing pop culture, and shifting the global music axis southwards. In that timeline, Lagos has remained the steady pulse, chaotic, crowded, creative, a place where every day is a beat waiting to drop. As Lagos prepares to host AFRIMA again, the city is not just dusting off a red carpet; it’s rewriting a legacy. A legacy where artists don’t just export sound but bring the world back to where it all started. Where the dreamers behind the scenes, the sound engineers, the choreographers, the costume designers, the producers, finally get their spotlight. And where the music doesn’t end at the stage, but spills into the streets, the skies, and the soul. Welcome back, AFRIMA. Lagos has been waiting.
