The magazine said, “This new list was compiled by our staff and key contributors, and it encompasses 100 years of pop music as an ongoing global conversation, where iconic Indian playback singer, Lata Mangeshkar, lands between AmyWinehouse and Johnny Cash, and salsa queen, Celia Cruz, is up there in the rankings with Prince and Marvin Gaye. Before you start scrolling (and commenting), keep in mind that this is the Greatest Singers list, not the Greatest Voices List.
On Fela, who was listed at the 188th spot, the magazine said, “Fela Kuti’s iconic songs of the 1970s and 1980s are sprawling orchestral instrumentals, an innovative swirl of African highlife, American soul, and jazz. Through his music, he shared an anti-colonialist, Pan-African.”
Burna Boy was listed at 197 and the magazine said of him, “A Nigerian cultural giant, Burna Boy, is the 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 like highlife.”
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