Popular Senegalese-American artist, Akon has maintained that he was instrumental in launching the international career of Nigerian Afrobeats star Wizkid.
According to Akon, Wizkid was still a local act when he signed him to his label in 2008 and helped refine his craft.
During a recent episode of the Bagfuel Brigade podcast, Akon also asserted that Afrobeats might not have reached its current global status without his early efforts to nurture Nigerian artists and connect them to larger international markets in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Akon said, “In 2008, I spent my time in Nigeria developing what you see today as Afrobeats. And all of them can attest to it
“Wizkid was the first [Nigerian] artist we signed officially at that time. And then we went on to sign a group called P-Square, which was the first [Nigerian] group that made it internationally.
“Wizkid was just the local Nigerian star before we touched him and it opened up to a bigger market. I wouldn’t want to take credit for all of it but I can tell you that if we didn’t do what we did, Afrobeats would still have been in the same position it was when we got there [Nigeria in 2008]. That I can tell you 100 per cent.
“I brought the business side of music to Afrobeats because all they [Nigerian artists at that time] knew about was the creative [side of music]. There was no business, no infrastructure, none of it attached to it.”
