The Rolling Stone’s star studded ‘Greatest Singers List’ parades Nigerian music star Burna Boy and Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti, as well as South Africa’s Mariam Makeba.
Burna is ranked 197th , Kuti ranked 188th, Mariam 53rd, respectively.
The Senegalese music star and tenor sensation, Youssou N’Dour ranked 69th.
Top African musicians also appeared on the list. They are: Egyptian star Umm Kulthum (61) and British-Nigerian soul singer Sade Adu (51), and South African mbaqanga singer Mahlathini (153).
Rolling Stone is, one of the world’s leading music publications platforms and the Greatest Singers List is a depiction of the greatest all-time singers across the world.
The publishers say the 200 singers contained in the published List were judged as the all time greatest, based on originality, influence, catalogue depth, and the breadth of their musical legacy.
The list was published on New Year’s Day and several notable American singers, from Frank Ocean to Kelly Clarkson and Toni Braxton were in it.
The top in the List is the US soul and motown singer Aretha Franklin adjudged as the greatest singer of all time.
“In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalogue, and the breadth of their musical legacy.”
The platform says the list differs from the Greatest Voices List. “Talent is impressive; genius is transcendent. Many people here were born with massive pipes, perfect pitch, and boundless range.
Others have rougher, stranger, or more delicate instruments.”
Rolling Stone described Burna boy as an “ambassador of Afrobeats as a global movement” that can feel equally at home climbing the European charts and maintaining a subtle emotional connection with past African genres.
The publication said Burna’s voice “is sweet like caramel, but it can also soar on slickly produced tracks like his recent megahit ‘Last Last’ or the 2019 gem ‘Anybody’ excited by deep bass accents and insanely sophisticated polyrhythms.
“His vocal lines find inspiration in everything from hip-hop and R&B to hooky pop and dancehall. The world is his playground.”
For Kuti, the publication described the late icon as an innovator for the high life, “Fela Kuti’s iconic songs of the 1970s and 1980s are sprawling orchestral instrumentals, an innovative swirl of African highlife, American soul, and Jazz.”
Describing his political influence through his music, they wrote, “Through his music, he shared an anti-colonialist, Pan-African vision and challenged Nigeria’s corrupt military government, which routinely subjected him and those around him to immense harm.”
