Nigerian rapper, Panshak Henry Zamani, popularly called Ice Prince, has claimed that his 2011 song ‘Oleku’ featuring Brymo was the first song to be categorised as “Afrobeats”.
He disclosed this in a recent interview with Echoo Room.
His words; “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’ to make it Afrobeats.
“Check the history, ‘Oleku’ was the first Afrobeats record. 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 playlists the song ‘Oleku.’ That’s my own claim o!”
