Music producer ID Cabasa has backed the claim that the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti founded the music genre Afrobeat, which later inspired the modern genre Afrobeats.

This came after singer Tekno, during a Hot 97 interview, said Fela gets too much credit for Afrobeat, even though other musicians were active at the time.

Tekno also failed to acknowledge Fela as the originator of Afrobeat,

He said, “I would say I was more inspired by Oliver De Coque because my dad used to play his 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.

“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.”

Tekno's statement generated heavy backlash, as many Nigerians disagreed with him by pointing out that Fela originated Afrobeats, while Oliver de Coque sang Highlife, which originated from Ghana, and did it long after Fela was already a household name.

Reacting, a music executive, Bankuli, stated that Fela was also inspired by Highlife music,

He said on X, "Highlife also influenced Fela too. Also, James brown was a big influence on musicians then. Or can you rule out people like Orlando Julius from that same Afrobeat sound? But also Fela did a great job not by himself alone."

Reacting, ID Cabasa acknowledged Highlife's influence on Fela but pointed out that Fela branched off to form the Afrobeat genre.

He said on X, "Bankuli 'Fela was influenced' yes, but he created something unique from those influences and named it 'AFROBEAT' without the S. Highlife/juju, and many more genres also survived. Shout out to Tony Allen. The drum pattern was unique. Fela's mode of writing was different. Abami Eda played Modal music. To mention, I think people are misconstruing what Tekno said tho. He refers to influences to the current AFROBEATS, not the one without the S. I might be wrong sha."

ASA