Those doing Asakaa music shouldn’t stop but right now Afrobeats is what has America paying attention

Michael ‘Emm’ Acheampong-Boateng, President of Highbridge the Label, has explained that it makes sense for African musicians do push the Afrobeats agenda into the US market, since that is what is hot at the moment.

“Afrobeats is not new, but in the US, it is. For example, Pop Smoke made drill music with UK beats, that’s how he was introduced to the market. The plan before he died was to transition to more traditional music for people to enjoy. You saw that in his first album after he passed away. If you are a good businessman, the first thing to remember is that you are a business so you position yourself well in order to be successful. If there’s a market for Afrobeats in America and you’re looking into breaking into the market, then you need to come in with what they want and slowly transition to whatever you are looking to bring and see how the market reacts to that,” he said in an interview with Ameyaw TV.

Watch Full interview below:

https://youtu.be/37ZRr_zSNa8

Asked whether the Asaaka drill music from Ghana was making similar waves in the US, Emm said it wasn’t the case yet.

“I didn’t see it in the US. If I did, I saw it in the African community in the US. If there was an African party, then that’s where you would see it but if you move from the subset of that population, then it didn’t really travel. Afrobeats however, is traveling outside of the African community. So again, I don’t think rappers doing Asaaka should abandon it. But they should be aware that if they want to get a commercial appeal, they should lean towards Afrobeats. Because with rap, Americans speak English, so if they can’t understand what you’re saying, then it’s a little bit tricky.”

Highbridge the Label is an American record label founded by A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Don Q, Quincy “QD” Acheampong and Sambou “Bubba” Camara in 2016, based in New York City.