Nigerian singer and actor Olawale Ibrahim Ashimi, popularly known as Brymo has slammed Davido, Wizkid, and Burna Boy for claiming to be founders of Afrobeats as a music genre.
The singer believes the trio are undermining the efforts and hard work put in by late legendary singer Fela Anikulapo Kuti to create “Afrobeat” as a music genre.
Brymo believes Davido, Burna Boy, Wizkid and other artists are basically imitating Fela’s “Afrobeat” genre by adding an “s” to its name “Afrobeats.” He further stated that Afrobeats is only a style of music not genre, insisting that Fela created the original Afrobeat.
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Brymo said:
“Afrobeats is a music style, it’s not a genre. Fela’s Afrobeat is the genre. And it’s disrespectful that a new generation of musicians came and just added ‘s’ and tried to create another ‘set of number ones’. Wizkid is the first this, Davido, Burna Boy…..no..no..no! They all are thieves.’’
Continuing, Brymo lamented that imitation of a genre is not particular to Nigeria but the entire globe especially among black people.
“Anyway, I think it’s a whole big problem that we have. Even the Black American music circles, Hip Hop was called Hip Hip in the 80s then, it became rap and then trap. We just show up and try to rename what our older brothers do. While they’re trying to kill us off, we’re trying to kill them off. I don’t know why. There’s supposed to be continuity,” Brymo lamented.