Nigerian rapper Panshak Henry Zamani, widely recognized as Ice Prince, has asserted that his 2011 track ‘Oleku’ featuring Brymo holds the distinction of being the first song classified as “Afrobeats.”
According to Ice Prince, he and his team made a deliberate decision to modify Afrobeat, a term coined by Fela Kuti, by adding an “s” to give a distinct identity to their evolving sound.
This alteration was implemented when they were sending ‘Oleku’ to international radio stations.
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During a recent interview with Echoo Room, Ice Prince credited Ghanaian-British DJ Abrante for popularizing the term Afrobeats.
He emphasized that DJ Abrante, while playlisting ‘Oleku,’ used the tag Afrobeats as per the direction given by Ice Prince and his team.
“‘Oleku’ was one of the first songs to be playlisted 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’ it to make it Afrobeats.
“Check the history, ‘Oleku’ was the first Afrobeats record.
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Because they have to label it on a radio station, that was why we put the ‘s.’ If not, tell me who came up with the ‘s’ at the end? A lot of people said it is credited to DJ Abrante, but guess what? Abrante was the one that playlisted the song ‘Oleku.’
That’s my own claim o!” Ice Prince explained.
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