Nigerian musician Skales offers an alternative viewpoint on the rapidly evolving music scene in response to Wizkid’s recent claim that “hip-hop is dead.”
Skales stressed in a recent interview with Hip TV that Wizkid’s remark is his personal opinion and that opinions are subjective.
Genres are not an exception to the rule that everything in life has its time.
He pointed out that new styles will always arise and that what’s trendy now might not be tomorrow.
Skales suggested that rather than claiming a genre is “dead,” its day in the spotlight may have just gone.
He says that a genre’s appeal and popularity can change quickly, and that what is trendy right now might someday give way to something else.
Even Afrobeats, which are currently seeing a surge in popularity, according to Skales, will eventually be deemed “dead,” not because they have lost their relevance but rather because the music industry is continuously changing.
In his words:
“Everybody has their opinion. Wizkid has his own opinion so that [‘hip-hop is dead’] is his opinion. But for me, my own logic for life is that everything has time and season.
“Everything is going to come and go, and there is going to be another recycle, which means, if you are hot today, you might not be hot tomorrow. Today, if it’s rap that everybody is feeling, tomorrow it will be Afrobeats, and next tomorrow it will be Amapiano, and so on.
“So I won’t say hip-hop is dead. You can’t say something is dead; it’s just not its time anymore. The excitement has moved somewhere else. I’m sure very soon, they will say Afrobeats is dead. It’s just timing. Nothing is meant to last forever. That’s why we all die one day.”
