Ayoola Shadare, festival founder/director
An event designed to showcase the worth and status of Afrobeat music is set to take the city of Lagos by storm on December 28 and 29.
To be powered by Inspiro productions, organisers of Nigeria’s premier and most popular jazz festival, Lagos International Jazz Festival, the impending event tagged Lagos Global Afrobeats Kulture (LAGOS GAKFEST), is being staged in partnership with SloweGanzi USA, GQ Acoustics, Zome International.
Announcing this in a statement on Friday, Ayoola Sadare, founder and festival director, said that since Lagos was the world’s Afrobeat capital and the music genre being the fastest growing across the globe currently, it was imperative that the city hosted the festival.
Said Shadare: “Lagos Is The Afrobeats Capital Of The World & since it is also one of the fastest growing music genres currently on the global scene now, its imperative that the city hosts a festival worthy to showcase that status. From a tourism point of view, people want to know where the Lagos mentioned in many Afrobeats hits is and visit same. For example quite recently it was part of the title of Wizkid’s global awards winning ‘Made In Lagos’ album.
“Afrobeats is to Lagos, Nigeria what Kingston, Jamaica and New Orleans, Louisiana are to Reggae and Jazz aficionados respectively and are attracted to those cities. December was chosen to kick off GAKFEST because it’s the year’s end and also the holiday season when a lot of travelling takes place and people would have the opportunity to attend the event”.
“Although, Afrobeats is also now played by many other pop musicians in other African countries, its pioneers and trail blazers are undoubtedly Nigerians with Lagos being the bastion of Afrobeats as over 80% of its proponents’ reside in the city. Starting from Lagos the music has moved to the African continent and exploded globally in places like UK, the US and is rapidly spreading to other parts of the globe.
“GAKFEST is planned as a multi-city touring event to showcase the genre in these other cities. Our technical partners SloweGanzi USA led by Mr. Wole Akande, GAKFEST Executive Vice Chairman, are instrumental to making this happen.
“Afrobeats artistes are fast gaining recognition and reshaping the sound and texture of pop music globally, winning global awards like the Grammy, BET and others. They are also touring globally, selling out at never-before-done venues like the London 02, Paris Accor, Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl, New York Madison Square Garden among others. This phenomenal rise is so evident that the Grammys recently announced that the genre is being considered to be given a category at the influential annual musical award. It’s Afrobeats Moment and we plan to also showcase it in our city!”.
The Global Afrobeats Kulture Festival is part of a multi-city, multi-sound touring music festival kicking off in Lagos Nigeria and designed to offer visitors and residents in and other major cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam and a few US cities the world class entertainment the genre offers.
The 2022 edition of the festival is themed, ‘Harnessing The Creative Economy For Youth Empowermeny and National Debelopment’.
The venue, artistes and programme for Lagos GAKFEST will be unveiled hereafter.
