‘Oleku was the 1st afrobeats record’ - Ice Prince shares his side of the story on Nigerian Music

Nigerian rapper Panshak Henry Zamani, better known by his stage name Ice Prince, asserted that his 2011 hit song 'Oleku' featuring Brymo was the first song to be categorised as Afrobeats.

This was made known in a recent interview with Echoo Room recently, where he also asserted that he was the one who came up with the term Afrobeats.

He asserted that in order to distinguish their new sound from Fela Kuti's "Afrobeat," they decided to add a "s" to the word when they were sending "Oleku" to international radio stations.

The rapper explained that the Ghanaian-British DJ Abrante was usually said to have created the genre of Afrobeats because he playlisted "Oleku," but that it him and his crew requested that Abrante use the word Afrobeats when they were working together.

His words, in part: "Oleku' was one of the first songs to be played on BBC Radio. One of the first Afrobeats songs to be playlisted. And at that time, they [foreign DJs] didn't know what to call our music, and they couldn't call it Afrobeat. So, we [I and my team] told them to put an's' to make it Afrobeats."

"Oleku is actually the first Afrobeatsssss"

- IcePrince Zamani

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