Five words. That’s all it took for Mr Eazi to reopen one of the oldest arguments in African pop. “I saved Afrobeats in 2016,” he said in a recent sit down with 3Music TV, and he didn’t sound like he was joking.
The singer, born Oluwatosin Ajibade, was looking back on the year his career took off. In his telling, his arrival gave the genre a fresh jolt it badly needed, thanks to a sound built on layered rhythms and a relaxed, almost conversational vocal delivery.
There’s a real case to be made for him. By 2016 “Skin Tight” was everywhere, and that slow, unhurried groove felt different from much of what was dominating Nigerian radio at the time.
His style carried a strong Ghanaian influence, which made sense for an artist who spent his university years in Kumasi before breaking through.
The industry noticed too. Mr Eazi took home Revelation of the Year at the 2016 Headies, about as clear a stamp of approval as a newcomer could get. For a while it felt like every party playlist had at least one of his tracks on it.
But “saved” is a big word, and 2016 was a crowded year. Tekno had “Pana” spreading far past Lagos, Runtown landed “Mad Over You” to close out the year, and Ycee was building serious momentum of his own. Those records reached fans across the diaspora and helped push Nigerian pop into new markets.
That’s where the pushback comes in. The common view is that the genre’s rise that year came from a wave of artists feeding off each other, not from one person riding to the rescue. Plenty of fans will see Eazi’s comment as rewriting history with himself at the centre.
Others will argue he’s simply saying out loud what artists usually only think. Confidence has always been part of the Afrobeats playbook, and taking credit for your own era isn’t exactly new in music.
It’s also fair to say his influence didn’t stop with his own songs. In 2018 he launched emPawa Africa, a talent initiative aimed at helping young African artists get their music heard and funded.
That move gave him a hand in shaping the careers of acts who came after him, which arguably counts for as much as any hit single.
Still, the timing of the claim has people talking. Afrobeats is now a global force with stadium tours and major label deals, and arguments over who laid the groundwork are only getting louder.
So far, Tekno, Runtown and Ycee haven’t weighed in, and plenty of fans are waiting to see if they will.
