by Julienne Okisho
“Your Statement Is Faulty”: Bankulli Slams Paulo Okoye Over “Afrobeats Is Dead” Comment
Grammy-nominated singer and music executive, Abisagboola Oluseun Yeezuz, popularly known as Bankulli, has hit back at celebrity show promoter Paulo Okoye over remarks that Afrobeats is “dead or in a coma.”
Okoye, in an Instagram post on Wednesday, lamented the rising fees of Nigerian artistes and questioned the state of the genre.
“AfroBeat Is Dead Or Coma 2026. We need to ask ourselves one honest question. Is Afrobeats slowing down, or are we creating a problem for ourselves? Artist fees have gone so high that many promoters no fit book them again. Even big companies and corporate brands are beginning to struggle with these prices,” Okoye wrote.
Reacting in a lengthy Instagram post, Bankulli described Okoye’s statement as “faulty” and “bad.”
The music executive argued that the genre is not struggling, but only experiencing a shift in how business is done.
“Nothing is dying as far as we know, they are all buying new cars, building and buying new houses up and down,” Bankulli stated.
To back his position, he shared videos of shows he performed in the last two months.
“I saw a post on @pauloo2104 page AFROBEAT IS DEAD OR COMA 2026. In my opinion such a statement is FAULTY. All clips above happened in the last two months. I do business under AFROBEATS GENRE but still I will share my little wisdom,” he wrote.
Bankulli further noted that what the industry may be witnessing is not a decline, but “growth in sound shuffling,” which he described as normal.
He accused Okoye of making the statement out of frustration over inability to book top-tier artistes.
“Is it because some promoters are finding it hard to book some top performing artiste is the reason to make that statement? Well if you must know there has been a paradigm shift. It’s okay for you to be obsessed with booking some other expensive artistes and can’t do so now for whatever reasons, but to equate to that statement is not good my brother,” he said.
The singer added that while some artistes may have priced themselves out of certain markets, there are still many others with strong fan bases who can fill venues and deliver value.
“Times have changed in the pricing regime of Nigerian artistes. If some have over priced themselves, it’s fine there are others very good with solid fanbase to fill the good space,” Bankulli wrote.
