October 15, (THEWILL) – Senegalese-American singer, Aliaune Damala Badara, professionally known as Akon, has revealed how he signed Afrobeats superstar, Wizkid in 2008 and the popular twin singing sensation, PSquare.
Akon said he signed Wizkid in conjunction with Sony Music after the World Cup when they came to Africa in a bid to take Afrobeat to the global stage.
According to him, after signing Big Wiz, they did PSquare and were able to commercialize the traditional Africa music for global acceptance and relish.
The “Locked Up” singer said: “I signed Wizkid back in 2008. So what happened was, when I went to Africa after the world cup, we were looking for ways that we could take the local music and branch it off.”
“So at that time, the local music was so traditional musically that it wouldn’t break outside of Nigeria, Ghana, anywhere.”
“So, we started adding commercialized music, like instruments around it. So we commercialized a lot of it. So we went from Afrobeat to Afropop basically.”
“So it was then, we signed Wizkid first and after that, there was another group called PSquare. PSquare was two twins that came out of Nigeria”.
Adedolapo Azeez
Akon Reveals He signed WIzkid, PSquare To make Afrobeats Global
Senegalese-American singer, Aliaune Damala Badara, professionally known as Akon, has revealed how he signed Afrobeats superstar, Wizkid in 2008 and the popular twin singing sensation, PSquare.
Akon said he signed Wizkid in conjunction with Sony Music after the World Cup when they came to Africa in a bid to take Afrobeat to the global stage.
According to him, after signing Big Wiz, they did PSquare and were able to commercialise traditional Africa music for global acceptance and relish.
The “Locked Up” singer said: “I signed Wizkid back in 2008. So what happened was, when I went to Africa after the world cup, we were looking for ways that we could take the local music and branch it off.”
“So at that time, the local music was so traditional musically that it wouldn’t break outside of Nigeria, Ghana, anywhere.”
“So, we started adding commercialised music, like instruments around it. So we commercialised a lot of it. So we went from Afrobeat to Afropop basically.”
“So it was then, we signed Wizkid first and after that, there was another group called PSquare. PSquare was two twins that came out of Nigeria”.
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