Music producer Olumide Ogunade, popularly known as ID Cabasa, has lamented that Afrobeats music genre is failing to build institutions but is funding an unsustainable lifestyle with the money it earns.

In a post on X, he said, “A major problem with AfrobeatS is that we are not building. We are creating ‘YES’ but not building ‘Sustainability’. Our catalogues are being ‘Sold’, not ‘Owned’. The monies coming in are going into creating an unsustainable lifestyle rather than building ‘Institutions’ that will uphold the culture.”

ID Cabasa said this amid an ongoing conversation on social media, where some quarters claim that the genre is in decline.

They state that foreigners have decreased their investments in Afrobeats artists. Simultaneously, they argue that local investors, who were overlooked during the genre’s surge, have lost interest in supporting the Nigerian music industry.

ID Cabasa continued, “Also, we are not ‘building’ anything at home. Home is meant to be the base! To build, we need more than just creatives/exec! We need Tech/Judiciary/investment, and proper value-sensitive culture

“Homebase is almost destroyed as we speak! Every matrix of growth is controlled by Western media… building communities locally in d music ecosystem is threatened by the budget few are getting from outside.”

He added that creatives will start crying foul “when tech guys come into this mess to create solutions… When actually this is the best time to poach them, and investment in creating ‘Distro platforms’ that are excellent and truthful.”