Singer Augustine Miles Kelechi, known as Tekno, told Hot 97 FM in New York that the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was not the sole originator of Afrobeats, a claim that cuts against a widely held story of the genre.
Tekno said other Nigerian legends, including highlife guitarist Oliver De Coque, shaped the music as deeply as Fela did. He argued that Fela collected “all the credits” because he travelled more and was more “opportune.”
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“Fela is not the originator of Afrobeats. Lagos people and the Yorubas might say he is the one, but I am from the East, and we had legends like Oliver De Coque. Oliver De Coque made pure highlife music. Highlife is also Afrobeats,” he said.
He was careful to praise Fela as well. “My song ‘Rara’ is heavily inspired by Fela because I heard his music while growing up. He is a legend. He was the one who took Afrobeat international. But there are other people that we listen to.”
Tekno said records from the East still sound startlingly modern. His father played Oliver De Coque at home, and that catalogue, he said, formed him as much as Fela’s.
“Fela gets all the credit because he travelled and performed with his band around the world. To some people, he is the originator of Afrobeats, but to me, there are a bunch of them, legends that no one speaks about.”
The remarks reopen an old distinction. Fela named and exported Afrobeat, the horn-heavy, politically charged sound he built in Lagos and took on tour.
Today’s Afrobeats, the global pop brand of Wizkid, Burna Boy, Tems and Tekno himself, draws on highlife, juju, fuji, hip-hop and dancehall as well as Fela’s template. Historians usually treat Afrobeat and Afrobeats as related but not identical.
Oliver De Coque, who died in 2008, was a giant of Igbo highlife, known for talking guitar lines and praise singing.
Putting him in the same sentence as Fela is a cultural argument as much as a musicological one: who gets named when the world says the music began in Nigeria.
Tekno has not withdrawn the praise for Fela’s international breakthrough. What he wants is a wider roll call.
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Whether that lands as correction or provocation will depend on listeners who still hear Fela first when they hear the word Afrobeat.
Maryam Idris is a reporter and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, business, and public affairs.
