cousin.world is an update on global music as told through four playlists:

• run ⇡ — club tracks from euro & UK dancefloors

• cherry soda ⚭ — k-pop, c-pop, idol and city pop

• the grid ✚ — sounds of urbano, reggaeton, funk

• magnitude △ — afrobeat, dancehall and amapiano rising

Today, magnitude △ looks at Black Sherif’s current streaming dominance in Ghana, some dancehall diss track data, Tyla’s forthcoming debut album, a UK YouTuber’s foray into afrobeats and Shallipopi’s new hit ‘Cast’.

Next week, it’s back to run ⇡ for breaking tracks out of UK and euro dance floors.

magnitude △

1. Black Sherif — ‘OH NO’ (Ghana)

Black Sherif is a 22-year-old artist from Konongo, Ghana and his new track ‘OH NO’ is one of a handful that are currently streaming like crazy across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Black Sherif gets his sound by modernising Ghanaian Highlife — a massive local genre that dates back over a hundred years — with afrobeats and influences of UK drill and US hip hop. According to his bio, the sound itself has been engineered with the goal of “creating a mass cult following” and turning Black Sherif into “a global icon”, which seems to be working as he enjoys growing audiences across the continent, as well as in major ex-Africa afrobeats markets like the UK and France.

His biggest track ‘Kwaku The Traveller’ currently stands at 37M streams on Spotify and has topped the Daily and Weekly charts in Nigeria, and Apple Music’s equivalent in Ghana. He’s also currently having a hit with another track, ‘WOTOWOTO Seasoning’ featuring Odumodublvck (who I will come back to later), which is number 1 on Apple Music in Ghana right now.

2. Jada Kingdom — ‘Top Tier’ (Jamaica)

‘Top Tier’ is the latest track from Jada Kingdom and her 7th so far this year, and it’s still January.

Alongside three headline single releases for her forthcoming debut album TWINKLE — teased to Teen Vogue last summer — and a feature with Dexta Daps called ‘PURGE’, she is also embroiled in a feud with UK dancehall artist Stefflon Don, with whom she is exchanging diss tracks. You can learn all about the feud here via this timeline on NME.

So far this month, Stefflon Don has released three Jada Kingdom diss tracks, the most impactful of which was ‘Dat A Dat’ on Jan 8th, now standing at almost 1M views on YouTube. She is also weaving headline singles into the plot with her own ‘Intergalactic’ dropping 10 days ago. Similarly, Jada Kingdom’s biggest diss track ‘STEFF LAZARUS’ stands at 1M views on YouTube.

Despite high profile publicity and a celebrity intervention from Sean Paul, it does seem like the glut of new music being released this month is confusing fans and limiting both artists at playlisting.

As far as I can tell, TWINKLE still has no official release date.

3. Tyla — ‘On and On’ (South Africa)

As the scale of Tyla’s blockbuster summer single ‘Water’ became apparent to her label Epic late last year, many moves were made: a Jimmy Fallon US TV premiere, two remixes (from Travis Scott and Marshmello), a big stack of press and radio promo, and the pre-save campaign for her debut album TYLA. In December, two new singles were Water-falled (sorry) into this album product: ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘On and On’, the latter of which was premiered by COLORS.

It’s hard to imagine a better setup for a new artist than this run. Tyla is currently by far the biggest South African artist being indexed on Chartmetric, ahead of Kabza De Small by over 1000 rank points, their main artist comparison metric which aggregates DSP and social data.

In a move to secure her legacy, Tyla has recently started to use the term Popiano to describe her sound (a fusion of pop and amapiano), most recently discussed in the profile that accompanied her BBC Sound of 2024 nomination.

4. Yung Filly — ‘Grey’ (UK)

Yung Filly is a Colombian-British YouTuber, rapper and artist based in London.

Since starting his YouTube channel in 2017, his following has grown to a cool 1.6M on YouTube and 2.7M on TikTok, starring in some massive YouTube shows like Beta Squad, Footasylum’s popular YouTube dating show If The Shoe Fits and his own Chunkz and Filly Show podcast, recorded alongside fellow YouTuber, comedy partner and musical collaborator Chunkz.

He is also a genre agnostic artist who has just released his new single ‘Grey’ last week. ‘Grey’ is his 11th single and follows last year’s outing for the prestigious GRM Daily slot Daily Duppy, the YouTube show that birthed many of UK grime and rap’s greats. This track however has an afrobeats vibe and as such is enjoying profile on some of the bigger Spotify real estate dedicated to the genre.

5. Shallipopi, Odumodublvck - ‘Cast’ (Nigeria)

This track from Shallipopi and Odumodublvck is number one on various charts right now, including Boomplay’s Daily Trending chart.

Shallipopi is the founder of Plutomania Records, a label he recently launched with his two first signings, ZerryDL and Tega Boi (more in this DAPPER feature via LinkedIn). His debut single ‘Gra Gra’ was released in 2021 and he has since released around 20 tracks including his debut Planet Pluto EP. ‘Cast’ is his biggest track to date with just one of the multiple official music video edits on YouTube clocking 1.7M views.

Top Charts Africa just reported today that Shallipopi has been in the studio Rema.

+ Five More

6. Shakes & Les — ‘Funk 55’ (South Africa)

This new one from Shakes & Les has occupied both the Daily and Weekly Viral Chart peaks on Spotify in South Africa this month. Here they are last year interviewed for South African state broadcaster SABC News.

7. Shenseea, Masicka, Di Genius — ‘Hit & Run’ (Jamaica)

As she continues to build towards US domination, Jamaican pop-dancehall artist Shenseea shares a new one with fellow dancehall artists Masicka and Di Genius. She discussed her pop star amibitions back in 2022 with W Magazine.

8. Chiké, Mohbad — ‘Egwu’ (Nigeria)

The top streaming track out of Nigeria at the moment is this one from Chiké and Mohbad, released just before the New Year, on track to outgrow Chiké’s previous hit ‘Running (To You)’.

9. Busy Signal — ‘Happy Birthday’ (Jamaica)

Some new dancehall from Busy Signal came out last week via distributor and publishing company DiGiTΔL RiLeY™ Worldwide. Busy Signal shot to global prominence on the back of his ‘Text Message’ single back in 2015.

10. Bien, Scar Mkadinali — ‘Lifestyle’ (Kenya)

Bien’s latest single ‘Lifestyle’, taken from his 2023 album Alusa Why Are You Topless? came out late last year and still holds the top spot on Spotify’s Hot Hits Kenya playlist. Two months ago he performed another track, ‘True Love’, for COLORS.