“Wizkid single handedly broke open the doors for international labels to work with African artist

“Wizkid single handedly broke open the doors for international labels to work with African artist. I’m a music executive and I know what I’m saying, like International Labels would not sign Afrobeats artistes until “One Dance” by Wizkid happened, it opened up the doors for African music.” Akon

“One of our biggest fîghts was introducing afrobeats to the world and once it was introduced, we needed to make it big. I remember when I was trying to shõp Wizkid over at Sony in 2010, they thought it was reggae music. People don’t know that Wizkid is like an OG who had to put his career on the lîne for future generations to enjoy. At that time, there was no information and it was always a fîght to get people to listen to afrobeats. But then when it worked in the UK, it opened up the doors and when YouTube became super popular, it opened up the doors. Social media and YouTube is what opened the doors for afrobeats to actually blôw up. I signed Wizkid to Konvict Music Africa right back in 2008 and I’m glad that he’s a superstar today. When I went to Africa after the world cup, we(Konvict Music Africa) were looking for ways that we could take local music and breach it of to the rest of the world. At that time the local music was so traditional musically that it wouldn’t break out of Ghana, Nigeria or anywhere. Then we commercialized the music and started afro-fusion and basically went from afrobeat to afro-pop. People can be braggîng but Wizkid was the first artist to do afro-fusion cuz we signed him first when we commercialized it. After we signed Wizkid, we also signed another group called P-Square who were twins that came out of Nigeria and ended up becoming the best chance of afrobeats. P-Square was the biggest selling artist at that time but that was us pushing them. As that went more popular, Wizkid as a solo artist just became bigger and bigger because he had the whole Fela vibe but brought in his younger generation vibe too. As that was working and afrobeats was becoming popular in Africa, we started trying to shõp it in America but we couldn’t just get American labels to work with afrobeats artist. Wizkid single handedly broke open the doors for international labels to work with African artist. I’m a music executive and I know what I’m saying, like International Labels would not sign Afrobeats artistes until “One Dance” by Wizkid happened, it opened up the doors for African music. International Record Labels started taking African music serious because of the success of Wizkid’s “Once Dance” with Drake. Drake already knew how big afrobeats was and that Wizkid was the face of afrobeats and that’s why he collaborated with Wizkid in the first place. Ultimately, Wizkid is no longer signed to us, but we still affiliate and work all his records internationally. We split up and became partners with Wizkid in 2018 because his contract was over and he was already big enough.” Akon

Big Wiz is just a silent legend. There’s more to this thing than just money or height but it’s about the influence and Wizkid’s influence in afrobeats and African music as a whole shall forever remain unmatched.

Wizkid is the most awarded African artist because the world knows his influence and achievements for African music