Afrobeat is a combination of Yoruba music, jazz, Highlife, and funk rhythms, fused with African percussion and vocal styles, popularized in Africa in the 1970s.

Afrobeat's main creator and best known artist was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who coined the term Afrobeat, shaped the musical structure and also the political context of the genre.

Kuti launched Afrobeat in the late 60's with his famous and unequalled band Egypt 70. He had earlier played a fusion of jazz and highlife (For which he first used the term 'Afrobeat') with his Koola Lobitos Band.

Characteristics of Afrobeat are:

• Big bands: A large group of musicians playing various instruments;
• Energy: Energetic, exciting and with high tempo, polyrhythmic percussion;
• Repetition: The same musical movements are repeated many times;
• Improvisation: Performing without set music;
• Combination of genres: A mixture of various musical influences.
• Vocals tend to be sung in Yoruba and Pidgin English as Kuti, who spoke perfect English, regarded this as being the language best understood across all of Africa's borders.