Nigerian contemporary music has ‘blown’ over the last decade, not just in Nigeria but across the African continent and the world. A point amplified very recently by Nigerian pop artiste Wizkid featuring on Drake‘s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song, ‘One Dance’.
Yes I said pop artiste. No mistake there. Wizkid is a pop artiste, just like Davido, D’Banj or others of that musical persuasion. Not Afrobeats.
Simply because such a genre doesn’t exist. There is afrobeat, popularised by Fela Anikulapo Kuti and Tony Allen which at its heart is a combination of traditional Nigerian jazz, highlife, funk and chanted call and response vocals fused with percussion. But there is no afrobeats.
Pop music on the other hand does exist. Pop[ular] music has been the leading music genre all over world for decades now. In Nigeria it is no exception.
The ubiquity of the wrongful classification was recently brought closer to home when Ayeni Adekunle, founder/CEO of BHM Group and a media entrepreneur started on a twitter rant about it.
Dear Oyinbo media. WIZKID, Davido, Dbanj, and co are not Afrobeats artistes. They are pop artistes. Stop the misnomer.
— Ayeni Adékúnlé S. (@ayenithegreat) May 12, 2016
That tweet and the succeeding ones kicked off a mini twitter storm that saw many agree with him.
Osagie Alonge, Chief Editor of Pulse Nigeria, was one of those, stating that the likes of Wizkid, Davido and Korede Bello should be seen as pop artistes.
It’s just like waking up one morning and naming a genre HipHops or Pops or Reggaes or Jazzes. It’s so wrong #Afrobeat
— Osagie Alonge (@OsaGz) May 12, 2016
The ex-manager of pop artiste Wande Coal, who goes by the single name of Bankulli, feels …Read More
Source:: The NET
