The journey of Afrobeats isn’t complete without the storytellers, news makers/jouenalist; one of such is Sesan Adeniji.
Sesan Adeniji is one of the most authoritative Nigerian music journalists, Music PR strategies, and A&R. He’s a connoisseur of Highlife, Afrobeat, and Afrobeats culture. He is also the Publisher of Mystreetz Magazine – the most consistent Nigerian music industry journal.
Sesan’s influence in the Nigerian music industry spans over twenty years (20 years). For eleven years (11 years), he was the Managing editor for Bubbles Magazine. With a penchant for chasing facts and assembling historical editorials and artefacts, in 2011, he became the Executive Producer of Mystreetz TV, the first music documentary channel aired on terrestrial TV in Nigeria.
He’s an Associate Producer, Researcher, and co-director on ‘Journey Of The Beats’ – one of the most compelling Afrobeats documentaries.
Sesan Adeniji sat down with Rayo Kasali in this exclusive interview.
In your own view, which generation started the new era of Afrobeats?
If you ask me precisely to talk about and what point did Afrobeats become major, it has always been a process. The idea of Afrobeats firstly is an umbrella name that covers different genre of sounds coming out of Africa; also every player that has contributed to the growth of that movement is part of Afrobeats.
The question you should ask and what a lot of people have not paused to think about is “what is the ‘Afro’ in the beats? Afro itself is anything that is coming from a black man, either music, fashion, lifestyle, technology, anything that is coming from the black man is tagged Afro. At the point in time when the idea of Afrobeats began, if you are doing beats as an artiste you are doing Afrobeats but not the one done by the likes of Fela.
Afrobeats is not just a sound from a particular artiste, it’s a sound from different folks, different times, for me that is what is most important. I know a lot of people have issues with the word Afrobeats (with an S), but identification is key, for us to get to a stage where we have something we can identify with I think it’s a plus because when I look back in the days around 2001/2003 there was a major meeting when the influence of hip-hop in the growth of Afrobeats was growing heavily and I was at this meeting with quite a number of influential people in the music scene and there was this idea of understanding how hip-hop was becoming major threat to the traditional sound which is highlife and the likes. I remember leaving that meeting with them thinking the trend will not last but the hip-hop that we were enjoying in Nigeria was not just in Nigeria, it was a global phenomenon, a global movement, and it was something that could not change, and at that time some of us were advocating to tag our music as ‘Afro hip-hop’, because if you Google hip-hop part of the subgenre is hip-life because that is the hip-hop they were doing in Ghana, you will also see the hip-hop being done in South Africa, this is as far back as 2003, 2004, the word “Afro hip-hop” will have become major but right now it is part of the Afrobeats movement, because if you are doing hip-hop music you are actually doing “Afro hip-hop,” same for if you are doing house music, that is “Afrohouse,” if you are doing trap music is also “Afrotrap,” all these for me is under the umbrella of Afrobeats but we know at different times in the world there will be music that becomes popular and right now it is pop music, so the guys doing pop music with a bit of reggae and singing are dominating more than guys doing rap music now does not mean the rap guys will not become major in the near future.
When do you think people will start to see Afrobeats as an insignia to us instead of us being categorised under world music?
To clear possible misconceptions, Afrobeats (with an S) is not a genre, its an umbrella name, for those saying I’m not doing Afrobeats am doing Afrofusion I just think it’s a good time for them to have the conversation because at the point when jazz music became major in Nigeria, at the point when the likes of Ballroom music by the likes of Bobby Benson before the initial Afrobeat, the growth of our music has come a long way and it has been significant with different influences. When the slave returnees came back with Ballroom and they were doing jazz music the likes of Bobby Benson was major, but at the point where we begin to domesticate the sound, the influences that we were having we began to have our music, when we domesticated jazz music and ballroom the likes of Bobby Benson rose to stardom and we had sounds like Taxi Driver, It was a fusion of different sound, ballroom and jazz. At a point where highlife artistes began coming in it became major and we had different kings, we had the Rex Lawson, we had from the Yoruba’s, when I.K. Dairo infused his own accordion into it, it became major, when the juju guys came and infused their own element into it to create another fusion and the music became great. Whatever we are doing today is actually a lot of fusion but fusion is not a term, it’s a process so you cannot say you are doing Afrofusion, what are you infusing with it? – The only way we can tag ourselves is Afrobeats, all those other fusions we have in our music comes under the umbrella name. If somebody’s comes out and say they are doing Afrofusion, I just think they are lucky that the world is even talking about us right now but they should know that identification is key, there is nothing wrong in saying you are doing Afrobeats.
Right now you see the likes of Flavour saying “na we dey” because it is now trendy to be wherever you are and speak your language. There was a point in time where guys that do Yoruba rap music was major, they identified with their music, right now we are identifying with our sound that is coming out of Nigeria and other parts of Africa. I think they are doing a disjustice not identifying with the brand Afrobeats and saying Afrofusion, because if we can stick by Afrobeats people begin to hear us. Now our sound is not just a sound, it also cuts across fashion, you see the likes of Puma doing song with Davido, Tommy Hilfiger doing deals with an Afrobeats female artiste ‘Tems’, Wizkid with Dolce and Gabbana – if you check it, this three artistes do their music differently, different fusion but it’s trendy right now to affiliate with Nigerian artistes doing different versions of Afrobeats. For me, I think we should stick by the name Afrobeats, we have come a long way, the world now knows we have the numbers, the world now knows we have people in different parts of the world organizing big shows – it is a disjustice if any artiste cannot affiliate with that brand called Afrobeats which is a different fusion whether you are doing different fusion, you should be under the umbrella name of Afrobeats and be proud of it.
Is Afrobeats a marker for Africa’s time?
It is a marker for our time like I said before, when we begin to domesticate the sound and influence we have on it, in the early 50s when we domesticated highlife and ballroom, different artistes, by the time of this domestication different influences like economic and political were key. At the point when we were taken for slavery when they came back it was a political issue, a lot of the guys that came back were able to bring in what they have like guitars and other instruments and they started highlife. In the 80s when different pop music started coming to Nigeria, by the time we domesticated pop music we had different Afropop artistes that emerged from Nigeria, the likes of Onyeka Onwenu, Alex Zito etc. by the time when hip-hop came into Nigeria and we domesticated in we had our own – where we are today from the question you have asked, Afrobeats itself is a major force to reckon with. It is even major than what you see from the Caribbean because there are different fusions, different sounds, you listen to a song you hear undercurrent of RnB, you listen to another song and you hear undercurrent of reggae or Jamaican influence, listen to another and hear undercurrents of traditional folk music. Also don’t forget we have the numbers in the world, there are Nigerians all over the world, turning up. It is a movement right now; people want to affiliate with it. For me its not something that can die, looking at it from the business perspective, right now we have the numbers, we have the artistes, we are not even talking about mid-local artistes, we have artistes that can actually perform. Just like you are behind the scene doing a great job, there are Nigerians in terms of the promoters, Afrobeats promoters, dancers, entrepreneurs. Afrobeats is going to stay for as long as the black race continues to live.
Can we say Afrobeats is a cultural nuclear fusion spearheaded by music?
Hip-hop is a culture, Afrobeats is a culture, the fashion, the music, the entrepreneur, right now its not just music, the brand Afrobeats, everybody doing it is going to be here to stay for a long time and just like the way you cant have the reggae disappear, you cannot have hip-hop disappear, Afrobeats is going to be here. The joy of it is the fusion of different sounds to make Afrobeats, its not just a particular sound that is trendy there are different artistes doing different sound and different stuff. Kudos to everybody that has contributed to Afrobeats because sometimes there are a lot of unsung heroes that people has forgotten.
We should be happy that finally we have something we can identify to, and also people did not notice, when Wizkid won the award he won recently at BET Awards, for the first time a Nigerian artiste won a category where he featured other artistes, he was nominated in a major category not just Best International Act, winning in the Best Collaboration category, for me that is another major achievement that we should be happy that an Afrobeats artiste has attained.
Do you think our media needs to step up on shaping the idea behind the emergence of Afrobeats to stem the flow of possible cultural theft?
If you talk about cultural theft, life is going to evolve, some folks will attempt to claim credit but the truth is going to come out. Right now we have like two major Afrobeats documentary out, shot by Nigerians here. If you ask me why people might give credit to Beyoncé in terms of her helping promote Afrobeats – what Beyoncé did is also a major achievement, don’t take it away from her, it was a major contribution and she won’t have done it if it does not add up. What we need to do from a journalistic point-of-view, we need to begin to tell our stories and we need to tell it right, it does not have to include subjective amnesia. Like I said its not just the artiste, there are media folks, for me one of the major contributors to the growth of Afrobeats who are unsung is the media. You can’t take the impact of radio away from Afrobeats artistes it will make your OGBC, Raypower, Cool FM, Star FM, which was like a mecca to Afrobeats artiste at a time. When you also talk about the impact of journalists, entertainment writers, I was privileged to come at a point in time where we needed to define entertainment music writers because we had entertainment writers back in the day but they did a bit of music, society and others. When I came in early 2000s, we focused on writing stories about Nigerian artistes, let’s have a music magazine, for now we can say an Afrobeats music magazine. I started with Bubbles Magazine, and for the first time back then I remember putting Plantashun Boiz on the music magazine cover. There were no photographers in this town; we had to a buy a camera to shoot for the purpose that we needed those artistes to look good. There was another magazine called Hip-Hop world that was also doing great things, but we were writing a lot of stories about Nigerian artistes. It was those stories that Nigerian artistes were taking to embassies to get visas. It was a cultural movement, it was a statement, we made them look good, from there we began to move, followed artistes, I was there when Nigerian artistes began to move from Ghana music awards, when we began to win. The movement started in Nigeria in terms of dominating Afrobeats, went to Ghana and dominated Ghana, won awards around 2006, I was there when we moved to Channel O. At that point of Channel O in Africa it was key, because that is where the Hip-hop generation’s contribution to Afrobeats, 2006 was a major year for us when we went to Channel O. I was there with 2face Idibia who won an award for Ole, Lagbaja won an award for Konko below, Weird MC won an award for Ijoya, that was the first place I saw Sauce kid who came with Tee Billz, there was Question Mark and Storm Records there, and that’s where the movement started, 2006. The hip-hop generation contribution to Afrobeats was our major point for us to begin to win, and from that year to 2007 we dominated MTV Awards when D’banj won that award. Like I said, the journey has come a long way, and this Afrobeats culture is here to stay.
On the industry going international before this era?
There was the highlife era, that’s the era of the Bobby Benson, I.K. Dairo, Victor Olaiya – that was in the 70s, and do not forget that the 70s was also when the Fela Afrobeat began as well but by the 80s it was the pop era of Afrobeats.
Do you think the absence of foreign influence in the management of our music has given us the freedom to create?
If you ask me to talk about the era of international labels before they departed and their contribution to the growth of Afrobeats or their influence and significance, to be fair I will tell you they never influenced our music because they had Nigerians A & R and artistes working for them. If you go to the 80s where we had CBS and Sony Music, don’t forget we had Laolu Akins as an A & R, and it was Laolu Akins Sony CBS contacted when they needed to sign artistes and he went to Surulere saw Shina Peter perform and came back to tell them of an artiste called Shina Peter, saying he’s going to be a star but they did not have anyone to produce him. They told him if this guy is as good as you say he is, why don’t you produce him and for the first time we had one of the first experimentation of the former Afrobeats that Fela does and Juju music and this led to Afrojuju, this was one major moment, a significant one in the growth of Afrobeats.
Most of the foreign companies had to be live because of the Nigerianization policy that mandated Nigerians to be in management levels of any foreign companies and some of them did not have Nigerians in those position and had to leave, other reasons like the civil war etc contributed to them leaving. What they did back in the day is what is happening now as we have some of the major record labels here because the economic and political background is good. I mentioned before that the growth of Afrobeats is the contributions of the influences we have from the world are the backdrop of political and economic situations contributed to the growth of Afrobeats. So I will tell you that without some of the major highlife artistes that are in foreign labels their record wont be hard, it was a plus for us.
They are also not responsible for the wide spread piracy that occurred it was Nigerians pirating each other, they did not do wrong. Today, we have the new ones that are here, but the question everyone should be asking is are they signing artistes? No, they are not signing artistes, they are partnering with them, most of them are partnering, and they are here for the money. Until they begin to sign artistes the way Sony did back in the day, scouting and signing them, except am mistaken, if any of these major labels have done that now, then am here to have a discussion.
“If we don’t tell our stories, others will tell it for us.”
How do you think we can get to the level where we can sign big deals with foreign labels without sacrificing creative freedom?
I beg to differ, your question is that there is a fear that if these foreign record labels sign Nigerian artistes that they tend to meddle in the creativity but don’t forget it wasn’t the foreign record label that was here in Nigeria, it was part of the movement of where we are coming from, Davido had that issue, it started from the likes of Sunny Ade. At the death of Bob Marley when Island Records needed an artiste that is outside the major European countries to become a major artiste they spotted King Sunny Ade but at the point in time the idea of the way they wanted to sell him was different because they saw him as jazz. It is fair enough to want to do the music in a certain way, that was the issue that King Sunny Ade had but it was a plus because there was a movement, we should not forget that it’s a growth. When Majek Fashek was signed to Interscope he had that issue as well, but this international label was resident outside the country not here, they didn’t get to see them, they see them as music, instrumentalist, somebody sees King Sunny Ade and he sees Jazz music, that this guy is a fantastic keyboardist in terms of the composition, it is fair enough to be able to put that into it, they don’t understand but it was a movement for us, without that we wont be here today.
Without King Sunny Ade signing for Island Records, without Majek Fashek signing for Interscope Records without knowledge learnt from that, we will not be here today. When Davido first had his deal with Sony, he had that issue as well but he was able to solve it, he got his producers, his writers who understood the terms and audience.
We have actually come a long way, anybody should not have that fear today because we have gone beyond that, we are now dictating what is happening, every Nigerian artiste is dictating what is happening – that’s how big Afrobeats has become because in terms of business they know we have the numbers, we have the artistes, and our artistes independently can write, produce their music, and even open shows.
Everybody wants to affiliate with us, for Madonna to feature Fireboy Dml on her biggest greatest classic, that’s not fluke because Madonna is not an artiste, she is a religion, for me that’s one of the biggest collaboration that happened but you know our young generation don’t know what it is, that is the most significant collaboration that happened for us. We can begin to talk about the Ed Sheeran but someday we will look back and understand, Madonna is whom a lot of these female artistes aspire to be, for her to jump and put her signature on it, then it’s big. I will keep repeating it that it’s a disjustice right now for any artiste that cannot affiliate with Afrobeats, those Afrofusion talk is people trying to divide us, trying to think they are special, yes they are special but they don’t need to divide us, lets stay with it.
You can say you are doing Afrobeats but your own kind of Afrobeats contains this fusion, but for you not want to affiliate with that brand – its just bad.
What do you think can be done to create an identity for every sound without creating rancour?
There should not be rancour, identification is key, now we have something that we can identify with called Afrobeats, this is an umbrella name that everybody can contribute to, tagged under or affiliate with. I think the problem that people see is that Nigerians are enjoying it because we are very dominating.
Don’t forget, now we have some of the biggest videos, we used to go to Ghana to shoot videos, I was there. I remember sitting down with Faze during his first album and we talked about videos from Ghana, but what we do as Nigerians is that we go somewhere, we understand it, we spread it, we become better, like the first law of photography is – learn it and become better. Everyone will become better, you can’t stop Nigerians because we are very dominating and every tribe has their own but that’s the way Nigeria is. I think the biggest issue some people are having is the affiliation of Afrobeats to Nigeria. In highlife music too, there was a lot of movement within Ghana and here, but if you check it, even back in the days, with the likes of Jimi Odumosu, we pushed more.
So I don’t think anyone should have an issue with it, and like I said because it’s an umbrella name and people don’t know it, see we are in the beginning of this movement, by the time people understand that Afrobeats is an umbrella name… and I hope every documentary begins to state that fact, don’t miss it, make sure that if you interview someone and you get it wrong you don’t put that tick inside of it because there is a lot of false narratives out there that may do damage to us because its either you don’t tell the story well or you don’t talk about some of the guys that contributed to it – we should make sure that whenever we are talking about Afrobeats let’s nail it down, it is not a genre, it is an umbrella name for different artistes doing music out of Nigeria and Africa and it’s a culture.
The idea of putting the culture out is that its not just about music, it’s the fashion, the producers, writers, documentary person, and we need to importantly point these out. We should be proud that we have Afrobeats. Have you seen American music awards, everybody is proud, if you say country music people are proud about it but they have different people do country music with different things. If you go to the Caribbean’s when you talk reggae music there are different sounds, undercurrents. This is what we fought for, we should be glad in this generation to see that Afrobeats has become something that the world wants to affiliate with not just because we are begging, we have the numbers, resources, and we have the talent, if its not something that is business worthy the world doesn’t want to associate with it, if it’s not sound enough the world will not put it in front of them.
You think P. Diddy will jump on Burna Boy’s stuff if its not good enough, though he knew that if he does that he opens another chapter in his legacy and it will be in record that at a point in time, Burna Boy, the first artiste in this hip-hop generation of our that won an award worked with Diddy. It will also be on record that the first artiste that put a lot of Afrobeats artiste on an album is Beyoncé, it is a statement. So if we have Nigerian artistes that don’t want to associate with this and claim Afrofusion then am sorry for them, I know how far we’ve come to sit down on the table and in front of award ceremonies and to receive awards in front of the general audience on the day of the award show they will know that it’s bad for them not to affiliate with Afrobeats.
What do you think influenced piracy in the Nigerian music scene in the early years?
When you talk about piracy in this Afrobeats evolution or movement, piracy has it’s ills, nobody wants to put music out and it’s pirated but don’t forget like I said, I always see the bright side of everything – piracy itself is one of the major contributors to the growth of Afrobeats, it’s a two edged sword, while some were getting rich, others were getting poor, but after the major record labels left they created a road map for us to distribute music.
When people talk about piracy they want to mention the likes of T Joe, don’t forget that T Joe was very instrumental to the success of P-Square today because at that point in time they were the kind of guys that gave artistes money to shoot videos, as an upfront payment for your project at that point in time for me I will tell you as bad as piracy is I will blame the government for lack of structure in the industry, but piracy itself as bad as it is, like my boss, Obi Osika, used to say is gap marketing, your music is out today and people can get it in Onitsha and Owerri.
Let’s thank God for technology, right now, piracy is not a major concern, as bad as it is, we’ve learnt from it, we are going to evolve from it, at some point in time when artistes were saying my music was leaked, it was actually artistes leaking the music, most of them, because when you get popular, you get big, at a point don’t forget that artistes were going to Alaba to pay them to put their music in mixtapes because when you become major, you grow.
We have come a long way without the structure, now artistes are performing in O2 Arena and doing shows in Afronation, but don’t forget we can do this in Nigeria, we have stadiums. There is a lot that we can achieve here, we have come a long way, we have had stumbling blocks, but we have moved on from it and we should be appreciative of how far we’ve come. That is why it is important right now that there is a lot of attention on Afrobeats, we need to get our stories right, we need to give flowers to everybody that contributed and like an article I put out recently, as much as we are promoting the artistes right now, let the artistes carry the producers along, carry the dancers along, you don’t even need to carry the documentary/film makers along as we have carried ourselves along.
Thank God for someone like Olamide, people don’t give him his flowers, in this generation I don’t think that there is any artiste that has a label that has churned out the kind of artistes Olamide’s label has. If it was some record label that there artiste did collaboration with Madonna; they will make it look as if we can’t do it. People don’t know that most artistes people see around Olamide were actually just benefitting from his support, the first artiste Olamide signed is Fireboy, but every other artiste that we know, Olamide was supporting them for their music and giving them money for their videos but a lot of guys did not know it. Now Olamide, without having the kind of structure that other Indie Labels had, do you know how far Fireboy has risen. The force that is coming called ‘Asake’ is going to take a lot of people by storm but they cant see it, for me, Olamide is one of the Iconic legend that we should give more than one flower, though there is Mavin and some others but Olamide should be given a lot of respect, he has churned out artistes that have changed the movement, music, culture, dance, slangs.
When they domesticated and infused our local sound to stuff, we have come a long way, for me, I’m happy where we are today and for where we are going, but am actually concerned that we need to put out the right narrative, we should know that now we are sitting down in front of the table and we are having major artistes want to affiliate with us, some of these major artistes are opening shows for our artistes. I cant wait to see where we will get to, shout out to all the media houses that have contributed to Afrobeats, OGBC, Rhythm, Cool Fm, Raypower, we have the entrepreneurs in Kenny Ogungbe and others. Shout out to the likes of Philip Shremien of Music Africa, because without music Africa, at a point in time, we won’t be seeing music videos, shout out to Joke Jaiyesimi that worked there.
In terms, of Fashion, people forget Sojo, any time we talk about Afrobeats passion and the success of Afrobeats without mentioning Sojo, it’s a travesty because at a point within the early 2000’s our artistes couldn’t afford designers, and the guy that was making clothes for everybody was Sojo.
Checkout all the videos of Tribes Record, Da Tribe, D’banj, you will see Sojo there, just like the way we had people before him in the era of the Fuji contribution to Afrobeats when we had Vivid Imaginations and some others.
Shout out to Cally Ikpe of New Life Beats, it was a major platform for us to see music videos in this town and our artistes could grow.
Shout out to Emma Ogoli of MBI, he was one major music television person that was making a lot of people to see and most importantly, shout out to Kwame, because for the first time in this country, in this Afrobeats movement, a presenter allocated one hour dedicated to playing Nigerian music in the morning, afternoon and night belt and it happened at Star Fm, it had never happened, all the radio stations I mentioned played Nigerian music but they never created a belt strictly for Nigerian music. For Kwame to do that, and also start Global Sound before Nigezie, Global Sound actually revolutionised and created the standard for what Nigerian music videos could look like and break into the world international market because our videos were previously below par but Global Sound with Emma set the standard at that point in time.
Shout out to Keke Ogungbe for all the magic they did at Raypower but people always forget the man called Femi Lasode, owner of Evil Extra Studio we will never have had Plantashun Boiz production, most of the music videos done then were done in his studio.
Shout out to Nelson Brown, people forget he was key, I was lucky because I was there at the beginning of the Plantashun Boyz, shout out to Ajegunle as a place itself, those local boys in Ajegunle started rapping before many people could do, Daddy Showkey was a rapper.
Shout out to Festac as a place itself, it gave us a platform for a lot of artistes to think they can do it, shout out to Bariga as a place itself that made being ghetto fabulous, the Id Cabasa’s. These names I’m mentioning are very key to the growth of this industry, there is a lot of names I can’t even remember.
Being someone who has been behind the scene for a long time, how do you see the growth of the industry?
Let’s give credit, let’s go way back to the 50’s, some of the major guys that were part of the contribution of Afrobeats, don’t forget Lemi Gariko because most people know Fela’s music because of his art, he was responsible for designing Fela’s album cover and most other artistes in that era, and album covers was part of the success of an artiste’s growth as well. Don’t forget the woman they call the Margaret Thatcher of this Industry Keji Okunowo, she was the first major female in record labels, CBS Sony Music, she gave a lot of artistes opportunity to put out their music in the 70’s. Still in the 70’s, there was a man they called Ginger Baker, these are some of the stories no one tells, some of the Fela documentaries that we were privileged to see when Nigerians were not documenting Fela it was Ginger Baker that was documenting Fela. One of the first recording studio by an individual in this country that was critical to the growth of Afrobeats was owned by Ginger Baker, the Ark Studio that was in Ikeja, McCartney came there to record, Fela came there to record, we should not forget Ginger Baker, we should not forget his story, he drove from UK to Nigeria with his Range Rover, when Fela began to fall in love with Range Rover, it was through Ginger Baker, this was in the 70’s.
Let’s talk about the 80’s, when the influences of Pop, when we domesticated pop music, and some of our major artistes began to emerge in the pop era; we had Lemmy Jackson, part of the producers in that era. Some of the artistes, Onyeka Onwenu, several of them that emerged in that era that are major players, Lemmy Garrick was also part of that era. Also, when we domesticated Reggae music, and Reggae became major in Nigeria, people always forget and some people wont mention it but there was a place called Floating Buka, it was somewhere in CMS, it was the hub for everything reggae, it was able to bring a lot of reggae artistes together, shout out to Tera Cota, it brought in reggae music, but in terms of hub, just like we mention Surulere and Festac, floating Buka was a major place in terms of when Reggae was part of the evolution of Afrobeats of Nigerian music now that we call Afrobeats music in that era as well because we didn’t just have the pop generation, we had the reggae generation, but what about the hip-hop generation.
People forget Sound on Sound, one of the group member of Sound on Sound is Mr Coop, and they were part of the first group that did a rap album, and for you to know how hip-hop and rap music was significant and why it became major go and listen to one of their songs by a former DJ at Floating Buka, shout out to the likes of Buchi the gospel artiste who was one of the DJ’s at Floating Buka, we should give him his flowers because Laolu Akins always gets his, because he did the first experimentation of Afrobeats and Juju music.
Don’t forget Blacky, in terms of the reggae generation, Blacky is key, in-short you can’t talk about the revolution of Nigerian music now called Afrobeats movement without mentioning the reggae guys and Blacky, not just Blacky, you have the likes of Orits Wiliki, Mike Coco is in the pop era still in the 80’s, I’ve now moved to the bucket of the reggae era, we have Danny Wilson, was also key.
Also we should not forget Baba Dee, he is someone that doesn’t get his flowers, in terms of artistes that started putting out videos and infusing our local dialect in music was Baba Dee, the elder brother of the late Sound Sultan, he is major in that era as well.
In terms of youth involvement, I used the word the other time that the growth of Nigerian music that is Afrobeats is as a influence of different genres that was coming but also at the backdrop of economic, political situations and technology that gave us the platform to rise.
Ajegunle for me, in terms of youth involvement, the number of youths at the point in time, Ajegunle artistes and Ajegunle place have so much dedicated to them in terms of youth involvement with the music, the non-conformist with this generation that I want to do stuff myself, I don’t want to listen to music that my dad is playing – youth involvement, Ajegunle started it, it was key at that time, they brought the dance, they had a lot of artistes that were involved.
Ajegunle for me was key in terms of youth involvement and rappers can talk about their best lyricist but don’t forget that guys in Ajegunle started doing this rap music alongside guys from Abuja as well, talk about the 6 Foot Plus, The Payback Time – but these guys that I have mentioned is key if you talk about the evolution of Nigerian music to what we know as Afrobeats today, if you forget to mention some of these names I think it’s a travesty. Also in journalism as well, the couple of names that were writers and doing stuff, we should not forget the entertainment writers that were contributing. If you come to the late 90’s where I came in, when hip-hop became a major contribution that was bringing lot of artistes to Afrobeats, as long as you don’t forget the Remedies, Plantashun Boiz, Kenny Ogungbe, don’t forget Lagbaja at all because they were major, also don’t forget Bubbles Magazine and Hip Hop World Magazine, because that is the first music magazine, now I can call it Afrobeats magazine that was giving young artistes 100% opportunity to be heard and seen. They were using our stories to go get visas, we even created platforms, and we did shows.
People now talk about DJs but they forget GML (Grand Master Lee), he was the only one at that point in time bringing records for every DJ in this country, the likes of DJ Jimmy Jatt were getting records from him, some artistes actually rose up from GML, you cant talk about the growth of Afrobeats and forget the name GML.
Some of the influences that we got in terms of reggae records, when the artistes began to grow, pop records, when we now begin to have pop artistes, one of the guys supplying the records was GML. We should never ever forget GML in that era, he was key and I say this because people don’t read due to the fact that we don’t keep records, but you need to read or call people to mention names for you, GML’s name should not be forgotten anywhere Afrobeats is mentioned.
I was watching a documentary on CNN about female DJ’s and they didn’t mention the DJ called DJ Lockshy, she was arguably one of the first female Dj’s in this country, may her soul rest in peace, people forget because we have selective amnesia.
You cant talk about females in this industry and forget the likes of late Goldie, in terms of music video aesthetics, style that upped the ante, in short I think Goldie made Clarence Peters better, because they robbed minds, because some of the first videos that Clarence Peters started shooting was by late Goldie, in terms of styling and everything so people should not forget that generation, and even females that came before them, I mentioned Keji Okunowo, but what about the likes of Comfort Omoge, go listen to her music you will hear blues and jazz, and she never used any foreign instrument like Guitar.
For me, while we have the Ten Kilies in the 70’s, Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya, I.K. Dairo, Fela, if we move down we have the King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, a couple of them, while we have these guys, there were also females, queens, Comfort Omoge was key, Hajia Lolo in the north was key, and if you check it most of the times we talk about Afrobeats we also forget the North, there is Damara Jos, they are part of the movement, some of them travelled to represent Nigeria to perform outside the country, what about the South South, Victor Uwaifo, what about the regional kings from the east, the likes of Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, Oliva De Coque, Dr Sir Warrior.
What inspired the documentary “The Journey of The Beats” ?
Whether we create the documentary on Afrobeats, “The Journey of The Beats,” or the other one that you see by Ayo Shonaiya which is “Afrobeats Backstory,” the most important thing for me as a journalist back in the day is documentation, we don’t keep records.
When I came in to this industry I was particular about that, I called my Magazine diary of the music industry. I can say that I started the first music documentary channel in this country called MyStreetz TV, when it wasn’t even trendy for someone to say let’s do a music documentary channel, I did that, I was keeping records, and everything from the time I came into this industry, maybe 2001/2002, everything that I’ve done I still have the records today, and that’s what is driving me.
If you check “Afrobeats Backstory” is part of the records that they keep, but if you check “Journey of the Beats”, it’s bringing different folks that understand the music industry to tell the story of this industry without leaving anything out.
Documentation is key not just for the future generation to see but also in reporting, you can’t call yourself a journalist when you don’t understand stuff, one of the rules of journalism is getting your facts right before choosing to distort it, because when you get it right you wont need to distort it. It was not trendy when we started writing music magazine, people were calling me to give me different ideas on other things to write about but I wanted to do music, promote these young artistes, put them out, shoot pictures, let them look good, and look at where we are today – documentation is key to understanding where we are coming from and where we are going.
Let me endorse myself again, I was the first one that put Plantashun Boiz on a music cover, nobody ever did, shoot Plantashun Boiz for the purpose of the cover, I put Paul Play first on a music magazine when I was with Bubbles Magazine, first on a music magazine cover, no one could do that, I put Ruggedman first on a music cover. We domesticated what we want our artistes to look like and it was not trendy, let me fast forward to when I was doing MyStreetz Magazine, because I did 11 years with Bubbles Magazine, by the time I started MyStreetz Magazine and I remember putting Olamide on the cover of the magazine, some folks that was like a manager of a radio station in this country called me and told me I was celebrating mediocrity, that the boy is not going to blow, because at that point in time, people don’t even see that Olamide is going to blow but look at where he is today. By the time I put Phyno on a music magazine cover, it was not trendy for you to sing in Igbo language, most of the stations that you see now playing Igbo sound, but I have being privileged to travel around I told them that they needed to leave Lagos to understand that there is a huge market out there, with the presence of FM stations music was travelling faster but people didn’t see it and everything I was doing then I was keeping records.
I first did the cover story on dance and that’s another story to tell when we begin to do biopics, in terms of photography, you cant talk about the growth of Afrobeats without talking about those photographers that were documenting and doing cover stories just like Lemmy Garry was doing art, we have Philip Trimming that was shooting pictures of Blacky album and a lot of artistes at that era, I told their story, it was not trendy but I did that because I could see things that people did not see. I have interviews on Burna Boy when he was no one, I put Burna Boy first in a music magazine, nobody could try it when I did that, and a lot of artistes that I interviewed that I have films and footages of them, footages that I have of when this industry was true, at a point when you could talk to artistes and they open up to you, not now that you talk to them and they choose what to say, then when they were open, I have interviews of them.
We have actually come a long way, this generation, we should be proud of Afrobeats today, when me, D’banj and Don Jazzy went for MTV Awards, they did not give D’banj award in the major show, if we remember all those stuff we should be proud of what we have now. Now blacks in America are proud, at a point now you cannot stop, if you check part of the Afrobeats backstory, it wasn’t trendy for them to come to Nigeria because there was a lot of Ghanaian influence in London and Jamaican influence, we should be proud, now when you hear Afrobeats automatically you think Nigerian, but its not just Nigerian now, it’s Africa, people should not feel bad, I think the problem most African countries have is the first thought that comes to head when you think of Afrobeats is Nigeria, don’t hate the player, hate the game, it doesn’t matter, we own it, its our sound, if anybody jumps on it now, some rappers in South Africa are even doing more of music rap than Nigerians, there is a way we can learn from each other. I think Nigerian cinematographers learnt from South Africa and Ghana, we’ve taken a lot of stuff from them, they can also take from us, and if they cant take from us then am sorry.
“Documentation is key to understanding not only where we are coming from but also where we are going.”
How significant is Afrobeat documentaries and our story telling?
I think it’s major for the world to know where we are coming from and where we are going, because it’s still part of identification and selling our story to the world, I keep saying am privileged to come into the industry when we domesticated hip-hop, when it became major and we were selling to the world, I’m also happy to be there as a journalist at the time when we started winning outside Africa, because Afrobeats started winning in Nigeria, winning in terms of spread in Nigeria, then Ghana, and South Africa and when we dominate the world, I’m privileged to be a part of everywhere we went then and see how our artistes are winning.
Right now I’m also privileged to be one of the journalists, that did the research and coproduced, co-direct one of the major Afrobeats story today, it’s a privilege for me because there is a lot of guys that also know stuff like I do out there.
Standing from that point of view, I think it’s important for us to tell our story to the world because if we don’t tell it, they will tell it for us, now people are not going to tell us their American/European version of what Afrobeats is, no we are telling our story. I will tell you to watch YouTube documentaries out there but most importantly “Journey of the beats,” you will know that when we follow the sound, when we follow the rhythm of our beat, we will understand the true story of the evolution of Nigerian music that is called Afrobeats today because when we follow the sound we will not miss the name, but when we follow the names, we will miss other names, when you follow just names often times you will jump and miss some important people and that’s what we did with “Journey of the beats.” if you tell the story from there and follow that sound, our music that we took there, music we brought back, you will know the true story of how far we’ve gone because this documentary you’ve seen is just a tip of the iceberg.
When we begin to tell biopics, when we truly understand where we are coming from there is a lot of story to tell from the artistes, the directors, promoters, journalists, OAPs, DJs that we will tell, everybody should use every opportunity that they have to tell the story because right now the world is listening to us, and they are not listening to us because we are trends, we are the real deal, we have numbers, not just Nigerians, Africans in the world, nobody will pay so much for artistes to come be on Afronation if they don’t know that there are numbers there.
We should be happy right now, that we even have the entrepreneurs in terms of those guys organising the shows, they are not just foreigners, doing the shows and bringing us on, we have Nigerians also in some international record companies doing bits, my own point of view from there is to see the day that they will start to treat us like Sony CBS did back in the day, where they will go outside to scout artistes, mentor the artiste, produce the artiste, not now that they are doing a lot of partnerships, it’s good, with where we are coming from it’s great but we need to do more, we have the technology right now, let’s be happy.
Like I said, there is a lot of stories to tell and it’s not just because we want to tell them, we should learn from it, and our artistes today should learn what we mean by documentation, don’t go to shows and not even record it, don’t go to shows and not tell your story. I do PR; everywhere I have gone to with artistes I have documented them. I think that documentation part of it will enable us tell our full story. Let our artistes promote Afrobeats, talk about their producers, dancers, directors, let’s begin to spread. I like what they are doing now; some of our producers are also producing for international record companies. We should also not forget Wyclef, because people talk about Wizkid and Drake collaboration but people forget Wyclef, he was the first person to put our artiste (the hip-hop generation) on record in 2002/3, he put Sound Sultan, 2face and Faze, so Wyclef is key.
Just like Akon, people forget about him too, Akon was key to what they did for us because every bit that they did open the door for us, now the world has known us, see Fireboy performing at BET Awards.
Let’s tell this story, let’s document, and with what we are doing here, this documentation is key for people to see our story.
Journey of the beat is showing only on Showmax?
Journey of the Beat is a Showmax production, executively produced by Obi Asika, who is one of the legends of this Afrobeats movement. Without Obi Asika we don’t have the story of Junior & Pretty, there is so many things he has contributed, some of the shows we used to see on Channel O then was being produced by him.
For me, “Journey of the Beat” is the most compelling Afrobeats story, it is a complete Afrobeats story and it is showing exclusively on Showmax.
As Sesan Adeniji are you related to Adeniji Adele King?
No. I’m Sesan Adeniji, from Osun state, I’m not from Lagos, and I think the one you are referring to is from Lagos.
My journey into journalism, few people know that I did music, then I started writing for someone that was working in Daily Times, Bisi Ewetan, she opened my eyes to journalism because I was writing poems for them to put in the paper, and shout out to Tajudeen Adepetu, he asked me to come work for an African movie magazine, and that’s where my story started from, I was the production manager for that magazine before I met Goke and he told me about Bubbles Magazine and I started working for Bubbles and I just didn’t work there as a writer, I was writing for Bubbles and also looking for money to keep the magazine afloat, even when we had Hip Hip World Magazine that was major that year, and I can say we became like number 1 that year because we were putting the local artistes up, and the magazine became a major brand.
I thank God as a journalist I wasn’t just reporting I was sitting down with brands, telling them about artistes, I recommended D’banj for his first show, the Eldee’s, many people didn’t see me then because they saw me as a guy that came in from the backdoor, but I was ready to make a name for myself, I was writing about artistes, pushing it.
I thank God for where I am today and I look back to see there is so many things I have done even till today that has not been done before and why didn’t they do it because people think if something is not a trend they should not do it but I can say I did it first.
There is a lot of people contributing to the industry, don’t just write about the artiste, let’s talk about the writers, cinematographers, dancers and all that have influence in the music industry.
I believe if we all go together, we will grow together, an industry where the artiste alone is growing is a dying industry, let’s take ourselves along, everybody must grow together and that’s just the truth.
Where do we go from here, the future of Afrobeats?
Like I said, everywhere we go we need to carry everyone along, as we are telling our story, let’s tell the story of everyone involved in the story, it’s a privilege for me to be talking about Afrobeats, because I’m part of an Afrobeats journey and part of Afrobeats first documentary.
Our music is doing well, we are beginning to get better deals, there is a lot of money to be made outside the music in terms of fashion, styling, and different stuffs we can pull money from. We have gone beyond the kind of things that happened to some of the earlier artistes that signed deals, now we are controlling the narrative at record deals and record companies. I think there is a lot where we are going but where we are right now, it is important for us to tell our story right, carry everybody along.
To me, I’m more like another situation where people tell you things that are not proper, we should be able to put the story out, carry everyone along everywhere we can go to, the future is bright. The world should hear us; they don’t have any choice than to hear us because we have the numbers.
Everywhere we go to let’s tell a lot of stories, we should not forget, when we want to document let’s get people that know, we can’t say we forget things when we have opportunities. For this generation, we are not the lazy generation, if you check the news anything that is good that is coming out today on social is from the music, everything that is coming good is coming from Fintech, so right now the only good narrative about Nigerians is from the music, and it’s from Afrobeats. It’s a privilege; I’m so honoured to be alive to see this.
Watch full interview here:
Production Credit:
- Interviewed by Rayo Kasali
- Photographed by Bolurin Onafeso
- Videography by Fisayo Ebiniyi
- Creative Director: Rayo Kasali
- Executive Producer: Adedamola Edun
