Afro-soul is a genre of music that blends elements of soul music with African rhythms and instrumentation. It combines emotive vocal styles and lyrical themes characteristic of soul with traditional African musical elements, including indigenous rhythms, percussion instruments such as drums and shakers, and local languages or dialects.
While artists such as South African singer Miriam Makeba helped popularize soul-influenced African music in the 1950s and 1960s, the term "Afro-soul" has been more commonly used in later decades to describe a range of contemporary artists across Africa. The genre has since grown in popularity across the continent and internationally, often overlapping with styles like Afrobeat, neo-soul, and R&B.
