New York Post please correct this completely misleading and factually inaccurate headline by your writer Chuck Arnold. In addition, at a minimum, you should require your writers to conduct due diligence when it comes to writing about Africa’s music markets and its industry professionals. Supervising editors should also have a working knowledge of the genre to catch errors like this before it is published.
1. Afrobeat coined by Fela Kuti in the 1960s is not just international but has been global for decades now.
2. “Afrobeats” the genre it appears your writer Chuck Arnold is trying to discuss is a genre created by contemporary Nigerian artists and it began going global in the last decade.
Beyonce featuring Burna, who is an emerging artist on the global music scene, is not the direct or indirect cause of the genre going “international”.
Afrobeats has been going global for at least ten years and is evidenced by global tours, awards, and collaborations by many of our African artists way before @Beyonce and Burna’s collabo on the gift album last year.
While Burna has made his own contribution on the continent, his new emergence on the global scene and collabo with B is not the cause for the genre to go “international” and it is highly misleading to say otherwise.
For example, on the U.S. side, the genre gained even more global recognition and momentum in 2012 with a Kanye West & Dbanj record label partnership, Rick Ross & Psquare’s Onyinye remix collabo, a 2015 Meek Mill & Davido ‘Fans mi’ collabo, and increased in demand in 2016 with the ‘One Dance’ Drake & Wizkid collabo.
In addition, we have other Africans tapping into the genre i.e. @fuseodg, @diamondplatnumz, @afrob__ and helping to turn the levels up to take it to globally recognized new heights.
This is not the Africa of the past where you can write stories that attempt to speak for us and have zero accountability. Get your facts right and don’t be so dismissive of an entire industry that has bootstrapped itself without any western help, until the west has now be forced to take notice.
