The Recording Academy, organisers of the Grammy Awards which is arguably the most prestigious achievement in music globally, has come under fire following a description of Afrobeats contained in an article published on its website.
The article went on to list Ndombolo, Afroswing, Amapiano, Soukous and Alté as subgenres of Afrobeats.
The Grammys had in a post on Thursday called Afrobeats “a blend of West African and Black American music that became a global phenomenon.”
Sharing the blogpost in a post on its twitter handle, the recording academy wrote: “Afrobeats is a mesmeric blend of #WestAfrican and Black American music that has quickly become a global pop phenomenon.”
The post however was met with criticism as several African music and media stakeholders on the app took an exception to the description.
In a vain attempt to make amends, the Recording Academy updated the post: “#Afrobeats is a mesmeric blend of West African musics that has quickly become a global pop phenomenon. Here are 5️⃣ subgenres that will instantly grab your ear.”
But African twitter users would still not have any of it.
There have been controversies surrounding the Afrobeats genre – its origin, evolution as well as whether or not it should be an umbrella name for Nigerian pop music.
Earlier this month, Burna Boy in an interview, had declared that his style of music could not be classified as Afrobeats. He said the generalisation of all African music as Afrobeats was unfair and needless to African artistes. The Grammy award-winning artiste however opted for ‘Afrofusion’ as a more suitable description of his style of music.
Prior to Burna’s declaration, a docu-series by Ayo Shonaiya ‘Afrobeats: The Backstory’ which recently premiered on Netflix had devoted one of the episodes in the 12-part series to constructive arguments on whether the ‘Afrobeats’ term is necessary or not.
This is as a handful of contemporary artistes have also refused to align with ‘Afrobeats’ as an umbrella name for the Nigerian genre of music that has become one of Africa’s biggest exports.
Reacting to the stir caused by the Recording Academy’s tweet, UK-based Nigerian Entertainment Consultant and Disc Jockey, Abass Tijani, aka DJ Abass, made a case for Shonaiya’s docu-series as well as Obi Asika’s Journey of the Beats as embodiments of the history of Afrobeats.
“This is WHY we must keep telling our own stories. This is how the Recording Academy (Grammys) just defined Afrobeats – a mesmeric blend of West African and Black American music.
“Afrobeats is pop music out of West Africa. Simple. Has some parts of it been influenced by other sounds – yes – just like other genres.
“I recommend you all to please go and watch AFROBEATS THE BACKSTORY on Netflix and JOURNEY OF THE BEATS on Showmax – and learn more about the history of the genre AFROBEATS.
“Mesmeric ko, Sme Sme ni,” he wrote on his Instagram handle.
He added that all the other subgenres mentioned in the article “are all stand alone genres”.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he argued.
