By Samuel Sunday 2-6-2025
Veteran Nigerian music producer Olumide Ogunlade a.k.a ID Cabasa, said Afrobeats is fast losing its flavour and it’s sounding lately like Rythm and Blues.
ID Cabasa who was speaking on Channels TV ” Rubbin’ Minds,” said the lure of wanting to please international audiences is making Nigerian artists to lose it.
“There’s a good part to the diaspora effect. Many young Nigerian producers are learning new sounds and improving the quality of production. But I’m worried about the identity we’re losing.
“The West is now sounding more like Afrobeats, while we’re sounding more like R&B. That’s the real concern. It’s scary. I almost think we’ve already lost part of it.”
The 49-year-old legendary beat maker popular for producing Nice’s “Gongo So” said he is now focused on reimagining some of the hits he created back in the days.
“It all started from a conversation with Olamide. We were talking about how people abroad are trying to hijack the Afrobeats narrative — saying they named it, shaped it.
“That’s when Olamide said, ‘Maybe we should bring back the sounds that shaped this thing.’ That idea resonated with me, and I created an entire body of work around it.”