In a recent interview on The 90s Show, Bella Shmurda has said that all Nigerian artists should not disrespect the Afrobeats Genre of music no matter the level and success they have achieved in the Nigerian music industry.
He said this is one of the few things making Nigerians home and abroad happy and shouldn’t be disregarded.
Its important to note and recall that the superstar artist and Nigeria Singer, Ayodeji Balogun also known as Wizkid, uploaded a post on his Insta story disassociating himself from the “Afrobeat” tag and how he doesn’t want to be boxed up in the genre.
Bella equally called on Artists not to focus on the validation of the western world as many A-list artists who should be leading the Afrobeats Genre are busy seeking validation which shouldn’t be so, Bella went further and said African artists needs to do better and start attending and performing in African Awards Events, as this will boost the respect given to African artists and Award events if they start taking it seriously.
Bella said “We all artists should respect Afrobeats. This is our thing you can’t downgrade it no matter what level you’re. The country is bad, the government is bad and this (Afrobeats) is the source of our happiness and you can’t downgrade it,”
“We have Headies Awards, we have AFRIMA, they call you and you don’t want to perform because you’re too big but when you go for these international awards you try to give Africa shoutouts and make it look like you’re representing Africa. Leave the shoutouts, it’s for yourself. You’re not real and you’re not representing Africa because if you’re representing Africa, you will be at an African award,”
“If they try to categorise us, let’s prioritize our own. If you want to be acknowledged properly, from home, you have to be that person. If we take our own seriously, these people won’t have a choice”.