Africa's acts are bigger than ever. Now it needs venues to match. Nigerian Afrobeats star Naira Marley has become so popular internationally that his home country — Africa’s largest, with a population of over 205 million — doesn’t have a live venue large enough to contain his burgeoning fan base.
Overseas, the 26-year-old artist’s popularity expands far beyond West Africa’s diaspora. In 2019, he sold out London’s 4,900-capacity O2 Academy Brixton in under three minutes for a show in February, and he’s considering playing an arena when he returns. “In the [United Kingdom], he would graduate to the next venue size,” says Chinedu Okeke, promoter-creator of the Gidi Culture Festival in Lagos, Nigeria, which launched in 2014. “But [here],
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