Singer Tekno has said Fela Kuti should not be seen as the sole originator of Afrobeat, pointing to the contributions of other musicians including highlife legend Oliver De Coque.
Speaking in an interview on HOT 97, Tekno acknowledged Fela’s role in taking the sound to a global audience but stressed that highlife and other Nigerian musical traditions also form part of the genre’s roots.
“There are legends like Oliver De Coque that made pure highlife music, and highlife is also Afrobeat,” he said.
Tekno, who is from eastern Nigeria, noted that his track “Rara” drew inspiration from Fela, whom he described as a legend who “stamped the Afrobeat thing on the world map.”
However, he said many eastern Nigerian artists had produced influential music that remains under-recognised.
“But there are other people that we listen to from the East… and we had legends that sang some type of music that if you heard today, you wouldn’t even believe that this music was made in those times,” Tekno said.
He added that he was more personally inspired by Oliver De Coque because his father frequently played the highlife star’s records.
“There were so many artists that nobody knows about, and Fela gets the credit because he kind of travelled and had the band and went around the world,” Tekno said.
“For some people, he is the originator of the Afrobeat thing, but to me, there is still a bunch of them and a lot of legends no one speaks about.”
