“Our culture has become too accessible” – Uproar as American singer Usher bags VMA nomination under the Afrobeats category

The VMA awards are coming up, and there’s a bit of tension more than excitement this time around, and one category is the cause for concern.

When the list for the Best Afrobeats Artist was released, one name stood out, and that was American singer Usher, who featured popular producer/singer Pheelzgood for his song ruin.

Music journalist Joey Akan expressed his disdain and worry over the fact that a Non-African was nominated in an Afrobeats category.

In a lengthy but concise post, Joey Akan expressed his fears, and it went;

”The MAs, a global award body, just nominated Usher in the ‘Best Afrobeats’ category. And so the erosion of Nigeria from Afrobeats hits a crucial plot point.

I’ve been screaming this for a while. A decade of no gate-keeping, and local talents selling it all off and kowtowing to the big music corporations will only move in one way; the loss of cultural ownership by Nigerians.

First, they come with money and opportunities, displacing your art and
the spirit by moving you out of your home.

I see the stidity of Nigerians who are inadvertently complicit in this by parroting the blasphemy; “London is the home of Afrobeats.” Not Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu or any other part of this great country. London, UK.

A strange land. All because foreigners gave you money and relocated your business and music away from home.

These companies and the cond*ms they use to fk the system, spent nearly a decade throwing our artists in rooms with foreign producers, who have spliced our records, seeking to learn the source. That has succeeded.

White Afrobeats producers with no connection to Nigeria are now producing Afrobeats records. And what’s peculiar Nigerian artists have begun to work with them.

Look at the credits on our mainstream albums this year. Blond, blue-eyed, producers flooding the scene. Already, your culture has become too inaccessible to the masses and even most creators.

On the back end, only those with major-label dollars can compete. The front-end has us unable to afford our shows, and gauging Nigerian artists’ success by what they can do for foreigners.

Now, American artists have started making Afrobeats – with our token assistance, of course -and replacing you at their award shows, where we have fought for our music to be recognized.

Give it another decade, and the replacement becomes normalised. Yeah, you can argue that Pheelz is on that song, for now.

But tomorrow, when they become more brazen, and the cultural transfer is completed.

Then they won’t need a Nigerian to validate their moves. They’ll kick us to the curb. But our sound will remain in those markets. Divorced from Nigerians.

Ask the Jamaicans, and other Caribbean cultures that dined before us. This is Deja vu. Big Brother adding to their cultural pie. Slowly at first, and then all at once. The VMAs is just the first salvo in that b*ttle.”