Skip to main content Skip to footer Nigerian rapper and singer Skales has responded to Afrobeats star Wizkid’s controversial statement that “hip-hop is dead.” During an interview with Hip TV, Skales argued that the genre is not dead but that its popularity has shifted, emphasizing that everything in life has its season.
“Everybody has their opinion. Wizkid has his own opinion so that [‘hip-hop is dead’] is his opinion. But for me, my own logic for life is that everything has time and season,” Skales stated.
He elaborated on the cyclical nature of musical trends, suggesting that the dominance of different genres is transient. “Everything is going to come and go, and there is going to be another recycle, which means, if you are hot today, you might not be hot tomorrow. Today, if it’s rap that everybody is feeling, tomorrow it will be Afrobeats, and next tomorrow it will be Amapiano, and so on,” he explained.
Skales argued that hip-hop is merely experiencing a phase where its excitement has waned in favor of other genres. “So I won’t say hip-hop is dead. You can’t say something is dead; it’s just not its time anymore. The excitement has moved somewhere else. I’m sure very soon, they will say Afrobeats is dead. It’s just timing,” he said.
Reflecting on the impermanence of trends and life itself, Skales concluded, “Nothing is meant to last forever. That’s why we all die one day.”
