What is in a name? - the killing of afrobeats
Now more than ever is when we should have a unified in promoting afrobeats
What is in a name?
The Yorubas have a saying, "Oruko lonro ni," which means "names affect behaviour."
What if you are not responsible for naming something that is yours?
I am a Nigerian, like 200 million others who call this country home, but neither we nor our ancestors named this country.
A journalist for the New York Times, Norimitsu Onishi, christened Nigeria's home video industry Nollywood.
Afrobeats (the name) comes from the diaspora in London, England, with DJ Abrantee being the first to be associated with the name.
Nigeria, Nollywood and Afrobeats have one thing in common. The non-inclusion of Nigerians in choosing the appellative.
Irrespective of this, Nigerians have used these names to their advantage. Nigeria's soft power is probably at its highest level. Nollywood is still one of the most prolific movie industries in the world. And Afrobeats? Well, you know the rest.
We all know that afrobeats, as a tag for contemporary Nigerian pop music, is far from perfect, but it has been the most widely accepted.
Purists might still frown at the name afrobeats, but it is here to stay. We had at least a decade to brand our sound but allowed the opportunity to slip us by. Some people did try.
Obi Asika, the legendary mogul, once told me that 'gbedu' was once touted as the international name for Nigerian pop music but never caught on.
Afrobeats has stuck. The horse has not only left the barn, it has left the bloody farm. The best we can do (and currently do) is to take advantage of afrobeats acceptance and use it to gain more presence and music industry power.
With the spotlight on afrobeats today, we shoot ourselves in the foot if our artists disassociate themselves from the genre.
Afrobeats is the reason why the Nigerian music industry is buzzing right now. It has built an ecosystem of Songwriters, A&Rs, entertainment lawyers and other professionals. Also, it is setting up a backbone for our industry.
It is not the time for us to push a divided narrative of our genre of music and culture, whatever the personal agenda. As limiting as 'afrobeats' is, it is why the world is listening to us. Afrobeats is responsible for the new GRAMMY category - Best African Music Performance.
If we must rechristen Afrobeats, it MUST be in Nigeria. We must ensure that our music industry accommodates all the relevant genres in the country. They must be independent and viable without lumping them with pop music to survive.
Only when we do this can we push a unified, alternative agenda to the world.
However, discrediting Afrobeats in the global scene is a disservice to all those who have invested their money, time, energy and blood to ensure that today's mega stars sell out in the biggest venues in the world.
For enquiries, you can mail me at contact@ayomidetayo.com