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
when billboard magazine, they focused on afrobeats because it is doing so well. mm hm. but when they talked about it, the sounds and influence have grown in the us market through artists such as beyonce and drake. there was a lot of unease among some people who thought, why are you crediting western singers when actually, it s african singers? yeah, it s african music, but you can t deny the fact that these people, like i said, this is two different audiences, yeah? you can t deny the fact that drake, beyonce, anybody else who did african music in their territory, made it some sort of popular there. you can t deny the fact that african music wasn t this global ten years ago. it wasn t. and like i said, it is not necessary that it needs this person to make it go there, but it s just easier when these people put hands together. and you can t change the fact
it s not really because it is this person and it is that person, it sjust because it s music and it sounds good. 0k. so if it sounds good, then i wouldn t turn down the collaboration. if it doesn t sound good, then i will. cos davido said that western african artists don t need to push too hard, his argument was that, we ve got our own festivals. i don t feel we need to do anything, we need to stick to the game, embrace our culture. his argument was partly that people are coming to africa, and he described the cycle as going the other way, the world is now coming to africa. yeah, i think that is afrobeats to the world, that s african music to the world, where everybody someday in the world will come to africa for festivals and not the other way round. i feel like that is the dream. if you had to answer the question of who is piggybacking on whom, in your case, isjustin bieber riding on your success with afrobeats, or are you riding on his? is it a two way cross?