Afrobeats celebrates cybercrime and it’s becoming a global problem

When former US secretary of state Colin Powell took to a London stage alongside Nigerian artist Olu Maintain in 2008 and danced to a song called Yahoozee, he almost certainly didn’t know that the track is widely understood in Nigeria as a celebration of internet fraud. The moment became a striking illustration of something my research keeps returning to: how music can carry the moral codes of cybercrime far beyond their origins, laundering them in rhythm, recognition and prestige. Over the last ten years I’ve studied cybercriminal pathways, romance fraud, victimisation of senior citizens, business email compromise, and the cultural politics of cybercrime. My latest collaborative study examines 40 Afrobeats songs released between 2023 and 2025, looking for themes.