Afrobeats will crash in the near future - Jay Foley

Media personality Jay Foley has claimed that the Afrobeats genre will phase out in the near future.

In the latest segment on "Uncut with D-Black," Jay Foley said that the genre's current form may not stand the test of time.

According to Foley, the world is increasingly turning its gaze towards Africa, seeking out authentic cultural expressions.

This newfound attention, he believes, could lead to a deeper selection of genuine African sounds instead of Afrobeats.

"Do you know what's going to happen to Afrobeats? It's going to crash. This statement is not for us today. It's for the future. The evolution of Afrobeats is coming faster than the existence of Afrobeats now.

"The world's attention is now coming to Africa. So the West is now going to start looking into our cultural identity. People who have never heard of Africa but have heard of Africa through Afrobeats are now going to start concentrating and handpicking genuine African sounds.

"By then, it wouldn't be Afrobeats, it would be something else that represents Africa. Afrobeats is saturated African music, if I can say that," he said.

Jay Foley further pointed out that Afrobeat is strictly a Nigerian sound, adding that Ghanaian musicians often lose their identity when they try to adopt the style without incorporating local elements.

He noted that the use of Nigerian pidgin and terms like "omo" by Ghanaian artists doesn't resonate with the authentic Afrobeats sound.

“Afrobeats is Nigerian music. Forget about it. Because when a Ghanaian does Afrobeats, unless you add the Nigerian accent to it, you are lost. Because a lot of the songs that we release now from our artistes are Afrobeats.

"But those songs don't get anywhere. Because, listen, our girls are talking, speaking the Nigerian pidgin, you understand? Our guys are using terms like “omo” and all those things,” he said.

Jay Foley's views tie into calls by many music industry stakeholders for artistes to acknowledge the importance of cultural authenticity in music and the need for Ghana to prioritise its musical roots over external influences.

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