Seun Kuti claims Fela pioneered rap music, but historians credit hip-hop's founding trio

Seun Kuti has claimed his late father, Afrobeat pioneer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was the first person to rap music. Speaking on the Hits Don’t Lie podcast, Seun said Fela did some rapping on his 1980 album ‘Authority Stealing,’ before the style was formally called Rap.

However, historical accounts credit hip-hop’s creation to DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, all active in the early 1970s. DJ Kool Herc is credited with starting the breakbeat technique in 1973, seven years before Fela’s ‘Authority Stealing’ was released. While Fela is celebrated for blending funk, jazz, West African rhythms into Afrobeat and his political activism, he is not generally regarded as a pioneer of hip-hop or rap.

This is the latest in a series of strong public statements from Seun Kuti, who frequently comments on music, politics, and cultural history. The debate touches on questions of musical lineage and how genres evolve across different cultures and time periods.

With hip-hop’s foundational years firmly in the Bronx during the early 1970s, and Fela’s later rapping occurring within his established Afrobeat style, where do you think the true origins of rap lie—in the American breakbeats of the 1970s or in the vocal styles that existed within various African musical traditions?

SOURCE: https://dailypost.ng/2026/01/19/fela-pioneered-rap-music-seun-kuti-claims/