that was pioneered by the legendary fela kuti. the latest incarnation of afrobeats is less politically charged. omah lay sings about love, heartbreak and longing. with western megastars like ed sheeran and madonna tapping into this musical style, what does it mean for the way that afrobeats will evolve? omah lay, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. fela kuti described his afrobeat music as, a fusion and combination of highlife, jazz, funk, psych rock, salsa, black power, anti colonial and anti corruption politics. how would you describe your music? i think it s probably the same thing, but i don t know if i m going to say politics, anti corruption, i don t know, but every other thing is the same. it s just that i do it differently now because, you know, music is different now. and, yeah, highlife is still the same, afro is still the same, the elements that makes afrobeat is still the same, it s just that, you know, it s a new world and ijust do it how we do it now in this, ou
in a televised address, he said more than 600 cases of collaboration and treason have been opened against law enforcement officials. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk with me, sarah montague. my guest today is a hugely successful afrobeat star. the nigerian 0mah lay is just 25, but he s broken into western markets, partly because of a collaboration with the canadian singerjustin bieber. he s here in london on a world tour now. afrobeats emerged from afrobeat, political music, a way to address social change that was pioneered by the legendary fela kuti. the latest incarnation of afrobeats is less politically charged. 0mah lay sings about love, heartbreak and longing. with western megastars like ed sheeran and madonna tapping into this musical style, what does it mean for the way that afrobeats will evolve? 0mah lay, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. fela kuti described his afrobeat music as, a fusion and combination of highlife, jazz, funk
afrobeat, political music, a way to address social change that was pioneered by the legendary fela kuti. the latest incarnation of afrobeats is less politically charged. omah lay sings about love, heartbreak and longing. with western megastars like ed sheeran and madonna tapping into this musical style, what does it mean for the way that afrobeats will evolve? omah lay, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. fela kuti described his afrobeat music as, a fusion and combination of highlife, jazz, funk, psych rock, salsa, black power, anti colonial and anti corruption politics. how would you describe your music? i think it s probably the same thing, but i don t know if i m going to say politics, anti corruption, i don t know, but every other thing is the same. it s just that i do it differently now because, you know, music is different now. and, yeah, highlife is still the same, afro is still the same, the elements that makes afrobeat is still the same, it s just that, you know, it
# by fire. # my vibe. afrobeat, it s making people enough money. and it has the public eye. # my vibe. even though we have artists doing afrobeat, it doesn t tell our story. hiplife is what tells our story. and i think it wouldn t be fair for us to lose such a thing. that means you re losing part of our heritage. hiplife is the illustration of the culture of ghana. # i m so tired i don t know what to do. # dreams, dream, dreams. so i mix my highlife, what i d hear locally from my legends, with r&b, what i d hear from the west. when you re cooking, you throw in this and then in about five minutes, you throw in this, that s