Joey Akan: Afrobeats’ Original Critic, Storyteller and Troublemaker

When Joey Akan wrote his debut article for OkayAfrica in 2018, the premise of the piece was simple: to cover J. Cole’s first concert in Lagos. Akan’s story, however, turned out to be something far more personal than you’d typically see in a show review. The Nigerian journalist shared details of the immediate aftermath of an attempt to take his own life, and how the American rap star's music had become an anchor for him. Akan's portrayal of the concert experience was both intimate and effusive. Established at the time as one of the most identifiable music journalists in Nigeria, from several years at the popular publication Pulse NG, the OkayAfrica piece added a new dimension to Akan’s work as a cultural commentator.

Back then, he was primarily a music critic with a frequent pugilistic verve on the page. Taking readers into an atmosphere where thousands of Nigerians communed with one of the biggest rap artists in the world, using his own personal truth, it seemed Akan was reinventing his approach to telling Nigerian music’s stories. An approach that would come to be a trademark he’d lean into in the years that followed.

The J. Cole concert piece led to more freelance bylines. For OkayAfrica, he wrote about Mr Eazi, Tay Iwar and WurlD, and he also parlayed his role as an A&R executive with Universal Music Nigeria, for a couple of years, into interviews and other pieces on Nigerian music in The New York Times, Pitchfork, DJBooth, and over a dozen more publications.

Ever hungry for ways to contribute more meaningfully to the music industry, Akan then created Afrobeats Intelligence, a Substack newsletter, which he turned into a podcast. In the five years since it was created, the show has featured candid, organic interviews with artists, industry executives and music professionals. And, in a full circle moment from that first article Akan wrote for OkayAfrica, the podcast, now in its fourth season, is presented by OkayAfrica. It’s an affirmation for Akan's work, and also a representation of his professional and personal growth over the years.

The conversation curator

The year J. Cole performed in Nigeria was also a pivotal year for Afrobeats’ push into the global music scene. Davido’s “Fall” was getting serious airplay in the U.S. and Burna Boy’s “YE” was in global song of the summer conversations. Akan penned introductory cultural pieces and profiled the scene’s biggest artists for publications outside of Nigeria. “Afrobeats to the world has been the thing I’ve been most interested in this music space,” Akan tells OkayAfrica one early June Wednesday afternoon during a virtual conversation from his Lagos apartment. “I’d say I have the most numbers on the board when it comes to covering Afrobeats to the world because I’m very fascinated by it, so I used to hype it a lot and I wrote all the articles.”

Hype is no longer the only priority for Akan. A running theme in the fourth season of Afrobeats Intelligence is a critical, intimate reading of the ‘Afrobeats to the World’ phenomenon and how that has diluted the cultural essence and critical value of Nigerian, and indeed African, pop music. “Afrobeats to the world came and it gave us a lot of blessings, but it also came with the curses,” Akan says. “We’re currently experiencing inflation in the industry [due to] the heavy focus on marketing; we now have more money to market rather than digging deep to use connectivity as a driver. All of these things are coming home to roost, and the art does not have as much pure importance as it used to.”

According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's (IFPI) recent Global Music Report for 2024, music revenue growth in sub-Saharan Africa slowed to under 23% – down from 35% and 25% the two previous years. Although revenue surpassed the $100 million mark for the first time ever, South Africa accounted for nearly 75% of the cumulative figure. It’s the latest reality check that, while Afrobeats to the world has been the rallying cry for nearly a decade, Nigerian music has a lot of homework to do as it deals with its own japa syndrome, of artists leaving for pastures abroad.

Akan believes local sustainability is the best way forward for Afrobeats to not be dependent on external funding and outside validation. Even with the biting reality of Nigeria’s economy, he sees the possibility of increasing the revenue pool that can sustain the local ecosystem – “even if it’s one naira per person” – seeing how incredibly ubiquitous Afrobeats is.

In one of the most engaging interviews of this season, manager and executive Muyiwa Awoniyi – popularly known as Donawon – wades into the value of Nigeria’s local revenue pool, shedding more light on why crossing over is the current obsession, even though “ elements of our culture are enough.” The undercurrent of that theme is present in most episodes, whether it’s Tiwa Savage wistfully breaking down the tokenism of being a female superstar in Afrobeats’ boys’ club, Joeboy explaining what it’s like setting up shop as a label executive, the iconic Timaya giving context to the Nigerian pop music scene in the mid-2000s and early 2010s through his own come-up, or Ghanaian songbird Gyakie lightly venting on the pressures of longevity as an artist.

From street pop veteran Bella Shmurda talking about how the focus has shifted, to singer Lojay who admonishes his colleagues for “fighting over the wrong things,” this season features conversations that take a necessary, wider look at the local Afrobeats terrain. “You think you’ve heard a lot from Donawon,” Akan says. “Wait for Lanre Masha, who’s the West Africa Director of Orchard, the distribution arm of Sony, to tell you why the system cannot handle these crazy advances, and everybody should go back to the drawing board, using common sense and a shared love for the arts as our flashlight out of this haze that we’re in.”

A clear-eyed crusader

That Akan is able to make his guests feel comfortable enough to speak freely about what’s on their minds is a testament to the openness and honesty with which he lives his life. At a young age, he lost both his parents, and he and his siblings were subjected to maltreatment by extended family members who took over his father’s business. Akan was sent, on his own, to a village in Ebonyi state, southeast Nigeria, but he ran away and was homeless for a short time. “I don’t feel emotional about it, it’s my existence,” he remarks offhandedly. “Being offended early and going through all of the tumult that I experienced as a child and into early adulthood, escaping that life and building this beauty, it’s a bit of a caterpillar unfolding its wings and transforming into a butterfly. The lessons from that resilience, having to swim against the tide, it builds mental muscle, it gives you heart and it teaches you what really matters in this world.”

In 2013 Akan moved to Lagos, to be in the heart of Nigeria’s commercial hub and center of its music and creative scenes. He threw himself into the deep end of Nigerian music at Pulse, reviewing albums and covering the scene with a verve that marked him out as one of the more prominent voices in music journalism and media. His critical work extended into a handful of investigative pieces that pushed his profile even higher. He dug into allegations of local streamers scamming artists, and infamously revealed insider info on the messy label dilemmas of Nigerian singers Runtown and Iyanya.

“All of that was when I was younger,” he says with a quick chuckle. “I used to think I was God's right hand, [that] I had the hammer of justice and so I wanted to use my work for good. I still use my work for good, but back then I was so keen on seeing the music industry – and the world itself – as black or white. I felt like bringing heat and light to certain situations where people had been wronged.”

Back then, Akan was a crusader with a two-dimensional perspective, and his investigative pieces led to run-ins with the people held as proto-villains in his stories – some of whom are now his friends. However, in a Nigerian music industry that can simultaneously feel like it’s evolving while also digging its heels into established patterns, Akan had to reassess.

“One day I got tired of the stress of having to fight all these multiple battles and not seeing anything being done,” he confesses. “When you discover nothing changes, you quickly also learn that the music industry is a playground of angels and demons. Everybody falls within those two roles at different points in time and, more importantly, it [depends] on who you’re asking, the same person that’s basically your friend, the hero in your existence, is a demon in another person’s. Everything’s just gray, and there’s a lot of nuance.”

The balancing act

Amidst the haze of the Covid-19 pandemic, Akan started to feel jaded by the limited scope of his freelance endeavors. “For a while, Afrobeats kept getting introduced every week,” he says. “It was always [pieces like] ‘Five Nigerian stars that would make it’ or ‘In case you missed the new sound from Nigeria.’ That went on for several years and I was like, ‘What the hell, man?’”

The answer was Afrobeats Intelligence, a self-published working ground for his new balancing act of sharing opinions and curating contextual interviews. The publication eventually evolved into the title of his podcast. “I wanted people to experience what I experienced in real time during these interviews. So I went out, bought equipment, started with audio, and from there, it just became what it is now.”

Some of the most candid conversations and interviews in Nigerian music – and beyond – this decade so far, have taken place on Akan’s podcast. The Afrobeats Intelligence archive is home to profound conversations, with essential interviews like a heart-tugging episode where the Port Harcourt-raised singer Omah Lay is uncharacteristically open about his upbringing and the demons that he acquired from years of clawing for survival, and a candid chat with super-producer and label boss Don Jazzy about the enveloping nature of grief.

Akan’s depth of knowledge plays a huge role in these interviews but his growth as a better diplomatic driver of conversations is key to his current phase. “When you’re [inflammable], a lot of brands and people will not come close to you,” Akan says. “Do I look back [on my early career days] with fondness? Yes, I do. But I think I’m now using my gifts in more productive ways for everybody.”

Building connection through the podcast

One of Akan’s favorite episodes of Afrobeats Intelligence this season is an upcoming interview with superstar Tiwa Savage. He believes their conversation gives context to "the greatest woman creator in Afrobeats music for the past decade-plus.” In their near-hour long chat, Savage discusses adapting to the Nigerian market as a somewhat late bloomer and an R&B singer, and her increased obsession with quality and authenticity in recent years. The interview is as seamless as it is engaging, an Afrobeats Intelligence trademark that’s an effect of Akan not writing down questions before recording.

“I’m just curious,” he says – but that doesn’t mean he goes into any episode unprepared. “I allow my curiosity to control me and, obviously, I have a journalism background. I always keep tabs on everybody, so I’ve listened to whatever you’ve released and I’ve analyzed whatever moves you’ve made a million times,” he adds. “So, it’s easy to have a framework within which to talk to people.”

Akan relinquishing the need to be judge and jury over the characters of industry stakeholders is key to the free-flowing nature of Afrobeats Intelligence. That doesn’t mean he’s stopped being combative altogether. Fired up at the mention of a rumour that he was paid to put down the career of another female artist to help Savage’s dominance, Akan threatens to bring it all out into the public or possibly even sue if the matter drags on.

“The sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he says, reiterating his commitment to the truth. A constant introductory bit to Akan’s show is guests stating, “I just spoke my truth on the Afrobeats Intelligence podcast.” That statement, which also serves as a motto for the show, is made possible by its host’s own introspective tilt, even when he’s being assertive.

“It’s hard to be a music journalist here [in Nigeria],” Akan says, proud of his accomplishments so far. “It’s harder to be an independent music journalist, it’s the hardest to build your platform as a music journalist in this market, and it’s also hardest to find global partners to invest in your business. I have done all of that.”

The same curiosity, candidness and ear for context has and will continue to be the defining elements of Afrobeats Intelligence during this partnership with OkayAfrica. Akan is appreciative of it all, mainly because he’s never had to sacrifice his authenticity with the publication and media platform – dating back to the J. Cole concert piece. The ante has been raised, and Akan is thriving because he’s been preparing all along.

Credits:

Photographer: Victor Edeh

Stylist: Simeon Ibukunoluwa Black

Executive Producer: Jyde Ajala

Executive Producer: Jamila G

Producer: Friday Gold

1st AD: Abdul Labaran

Photographer’s Assistant: Solabi Abayomi

Art Director: Ayilara Olayiwola

Gaffer: Somtochukwu Paul Akwazie

MUA: Eugenia Isioma

BTS Photography: Koyi Temitope

BTS Videography: MTY Studios

Production Company: Old Soldier Inc.