Renowned Nigerian singer Chinedu Okoli, fondly called Flavour, has clarified that he does not identify with the Afrobeats genre.
During a recent appearance on the ‘Afrobeats Podcast’ hosted by Shopsydoo, Flavour expressed that he isn’t concerned about not being acknowledged for the global success of Nigeria’s Afrobeats movement because he doesn’t consider himself an Afrobeats artist.
Flavour emphasized that while he believes his contributions to African music merit recognition, the focus of the media on promoting only Afrobeats as Africa’s defining genre has limited such acknowledgement.
“I don’t feel bad when I’m not given credit on the global rise of African music because what the media is talking about is Afrobeats. I’m not an Afrobeats artiste,” he said.
“What I’m doing is African music. There are guys like Fally Ipupa, Diamond Platinumz who are pushing African music globally that are not Afrobeats artists.
“Most times, the media just talks about Afrobeats. They are not talking about African music. If you talk about African music, of course, you should mention my name.”
The Highlife artist encouraged the media to promote not only Afrobeats but also other popular African music genres.