Hip Hop Rises For FELA and AFRO BEAT

RUNZ Entertainment & Rap Hill Music head honchos and renowned rappers, Michael 'Mi-Fliss' Akhimie & Bayo 'Stone Blaze' Odunaiya teamed up to create its first single from a series of future projects with FELABRATION, the yearly celebration of the Afro Beat legend, Fela close by.

The single serves as a contribution to this year’s build-up of the event, the pair explored with Afro-beat elements creating fusions with contemporary Hip Hop music to make it relevant and its influence prominent in the present youth matrix in Nigeria. Internationally others have been celebrating and showing great appreciation of Afrobeat, while at the home front there has not being a reciprocal appreciation of its ingenious & unique style and an open declaration of its influence on contemporary genres in Nigeria.

That’s about to change, as the Nigerian Hip Hop community is rising up to celebrate the most renowned musical export to come off our shores, Afrobeat.

The single which was solely produced by Mi-Fliss and executively overseen by Bayo Odunaiya, explores and fuses rich elements (beats, voice samples, music etc.) of Afrobeat music off Fela’s catalogs, together with Hip Hop to create this “New Musical Expression” solely for the purpose of Research, preservation and celebration of this ingenious “Musical Contraption” synonymous to Nigeria. We don’t have to wait for the likes of Jay-Z or Will & Jada Pinkett Smith to show us, how invaluable Afrobeat is, based on their actions to support the Broadway play “Fela”.

The single which features three grounded rappers namely Mi-Fliss & Stone Blaze (The initiators) & Yobemoh titled “Gentleman”, inspired and containing samples from the legendary Afrobeat inventor Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s 1973 album “Gentleman” & “Trouble Sleep Yanga Go Wake Am” off his 1972 album Roforofo fight . The single will be released free to the general public via file sharing on key entertainment/social media sites and other direct media to achieve this purpose.

The Nigerian Hip Hop community seizes this opportunity to celebrate a musical legacy that has served as a catalyst of hope for the oppressed and a canvas for the inner ghetto youths to express their disposition without prejudice.