Far away from Nigerian entertainment hub, Lagos, resides a budding young Afrobeat artiste,
YoungCee who is creating and curating beautiful African music with a blend of Pop-esque sonics, soulish Rhythm & Blues and the groove of Hip Hop.
YoungCee born Abdulsalam Umar is a 21-year-old music creative from Northern Kaduna studying Economics in Kaduna State University.
He released his debut single, “Snow Ice” in 2017 shortly after graduating from AirForce Comprehensive School and got signed in 2018 to 14Records, a music startup company in Kaduna State, NG.
YoungCee found inspiration to be a musician listening to the Pan-Africanist, the originator and
pioneer of Afrobeat, Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti.
In August 2021, YoungCee dropped his first body of work “New Fela”, the title a tribute to Fela Kuti, his muse. The album featured Lil Frosh on a song “Mofoti”.
YoungCee has paddled to the Nigerian music industry known for “single market” releasing quite a number of singles. To mention a few songs that are popular and favorites of his fans: “Lay Lay”, “On My Radar”, “Blessings”; “Ada”; “Gbefunmi” featuring Terry Apala.
Hailing from Kaduna City, a place known for birthing and grooming some of Nigerian veteran Hip Hop Heads such as eLDee, Pherowshuz, Terry Tha Rapman and as well as Afropop voices like CKay, Di’ja, Skales – YoungCee represents another cohort of emerging artistes from the city.
Afrobeats as a genre and now a culture movement is gaining momentum and creating a precious dent in the global music scene. Nigerian artistes like Wizkid, Burnaboy, Tiwa Savage, Davido are the current frontiers pushing the culture by leveraging on strategic international collaborations, touring with sold out concerts, gaining global endorsement deals etc. While this class of mainstream acts are representing Afrobeats to the world, there is another class of younger acts doing the same. In the class we have CKay, Fireboy DML, Joeboy, Tems, Rema…
each dominating their respective worlds.
It is common knowledge that there is Afrobeat and there is Afrobeats. At the intersection of both, is YoungCee. With the level of his prowess as a singer-songwriter, YoungCee can be categorized with the likes of Buju, Omah Lay, Zinoleesky… He (YoungCee), is an act that can rival on the global stage.
YoungCee is an act to watch out as he makes his way into the global conversation of Afrobeats
drawing inspiration from Fela Kuti.
