Nigerian recording artiste, Seun Kuti, has sparked an interesting debate after stating that Afrobeats is simply a title and not a music genre.
In a recent interview with Beat 99.9FM, the son of late music legend Fela Kuti, Afrobeat should not be seen as a strict genre but more as a label that identifies sounds coming out of Africa.
“Clearly still not doing justice to the music. I think Afrobeat is more of a title than it is a genre. More of a title than it’s a genre,” Seun said.
He argued that the versatility of Nigerian artists shows why the tag is more of an umbrella name than a rigid sound.
“You can see amapiano. Yes, you can see the new Afrobeat. It’s the new title of that. So Afrobeat is just a generalization, just a title to identify something from a particular place. I don’t think it’s a genre. It’s not a genre,” he insisted.
Seun further explained that even the biggest names in the industry do not operate as though Afrobeat is a fixed genre.
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“Even the gatekeepers, the big names, don’t deal with it like a genre. Their artists are eclectic in the way that they could do a dancehall track today, do a blues track tomorrow, do a Nigerian pop song, and jump on amapiano,” he said.
He concluded that the flexibility of African musicians proves Afrobeat is better understood as a unifying label rather than a musical category.
