As Wizkid and Seun Kuti clash over Fela’s legacy, the industry confronts an uncomfortable truth about greatness. Streams measure the moment, but only time reveals what endures, writes Joey Akan
It’s 2026 and we’re back. The Nigerian music industry is roaring into the new year by throwing us the gift of a project. Wizkid and Asake’s “REAL” arrives on the back of a whirlwind week and the general renegotiation of Fela Kuti’s legacy. Song and drama, just like the old poets foretold.
This episode has all the hallmarks of a classic tale. Seun Kuti, a duty-bound descendant of greatness, launches a holy war against the passage of time and a new generation of cultural aggressors who find scarce use for old treaties. In that melee, we have great declarations of greatness on both sides, a clash of consumerist perspectives and a reiteration of what “legacy” represents in an age defined by the primacy of numbers across digital platforms. Fela could impose his will on his burnished saxophone and put his life on the line against the oppressive government of his day. But does he have “Essence?” How does pioneering a foundational music genre hold up against an influx of dollars underwritten by “Afrobeats to the world?”
We are all slaves to time and documentation. And they both combine to drive us to task. It’s in the fundamental nature of music to act as a tool for both. A good song transmits a feeling by capturing, documenting and transmitting data reflective of the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times. Pop culture twists and turns with passage of that time, converting momentary bangers into time capsules woven into the fabric of culture. And as all things in flux, the euphoria of today becomes tomorrow’s nostalgia.
Fela Kuti captured foundational data that continues to serve and inspire subsequent generations of creators. Wizkid — whose favored consumption and reinterpretation of that data inspired an arm tattoo of Fela — believes his new contributions deserve similar or higher consideration because of their impact on pop culture.
The old classics also run on a generational theme of sons challenging fathers after passage of time. It’s the coming-of-age story. Zeus led his siblings against Kronos, with victory creating a new order of gods. Oedipus slew his father to get to his mother’s embrace. Nwoye embraced Christianity in defiance of Achebe’s Okonkwo. Sango grappled with Oranyan’s looming legacy on his path to deification. Tales as old as time.
In music, an endeavor streaked with creative ego, every generation believes its expression to be the best. Today’s rappers will pay homage to past MCs but spray “greatest rapper of all time” all over their hits. Pop singers might not compete with the greats of old in sheer talent (because of general democratization of the creative process), but they will hoist their outsized streaming numbers and certifications as proof that they can hang. Never mind that this is the most connected humanity has been and frictionless tech-enabled distribution means their art can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection.
With empirical measurements muddied by time and tech, what then constitutes a real measure of worth and achievement across ages?
Musical legacy operates fundamentally as a measure of sustained utility across time. When we call someone a “great” artist, we’re essentially recognizing that their work continues to serve purposes for audiences decades or centuries after creation — whether that’s emotional catharsis, cultural identity, technical instruction or pure enjoyment.
Fela Kuti endures not because critics in the 1970s declared him eternal, but because each generation finds something useful in his compositions: musicians study his complex polyrhythmic arrangements, activists draw inspiration from his fearless political messaging, and global audiences continue discovering how Afrobeat can express resistance and joy simultaneously. His music remains potent because it keeps serving new purposes — soundtracking protests, influencing contemporary Afrobeats producers, teaching younger generations about Pan-Africanism and anti-colonial struggle. Legacy, then, isn’t about some abstract quality of “greatness” frozen at the moment of creation, but rather the accumulated proof that the work keeps working for people across different contexts and eras.
This utility-across-time framework also explains why contemporary acclaim doesn’t guarantee legacy and positions someone like Wizkid in an interesting moment of legacy-building. Wizkid dominates his era by capturing the global sound of contemporary Afrobeats, bridging African and international audiences and shaping how a generation moves and feels. But his ultimate legacy depends on whether future generations — 20, 40, 60 years from now — still find utility in his innovations: Will producers study his melodic approaches? Will his collaborations remain reference points for cross-cultural fusion? Will his songs still soundtrack important moments in people’s lives?
Fela’s legacy grew because each decade revealed new layers of usefulness in his work. Wizkid’s trajectory suggests similar potential, but the greatest creators are those who’ve built work dense enough, open enough or innovative enough that people separated by decades of technological and cultural change still find it indispensable. Legacy is simply the long receipt of usefulness.
The tension between Seun Kuti’s defense of his father’s legacy and Wizkid’s assertion of his own greatness is ultimately a false binary. Both can be true simultaneously because they operate on different time scales of the same utility principle. Fela has already passed the test — his work has proven useful across five decades, survived technological revolutions, political shifts and generational turnover. Wizkid is still in the crucible, his impact undeniable in this moment but his legacy still being written with each passing year.
The real question isn’t whether Wizkid can be compared with Fela now, but whether in 2070, people will still be discovering new uses for “Essence” the way they continue finding new applications for “Water No Get Enemy.” The debate itself, however heated, is actually healthy — it forces us to articulate what we value in music beyond the immediate rush of consumption.
What makes this generational clash particularly instructive is how it exposes the limitations of our current metrics. Streaming numbers, certifications and sold-out arenas tell us about reach and contemporary impact, but they’re poor predictors of endurance. The Billboard charts of 1975 were filled with songs no one remembers, while Fela — who never topped any Western chart — grows more influential with each passing decade. This doesn’t diminish Wizkid’s achievements; it simply reminds us that we won’t truly know his legacy until we’re no longer here to argue about it. The artists who endure are those whose work contains enough depth, innovation or emotional truth that future generations can mine it for purposes we can’t yet imagine.
In the end, legacy is determined not by proclamations of greatness but by the quiet accumulation of usefulness over time. Fela didn’t plan to become a revolutionary icon studied in universities worldwide — he was simply making the music that felt necessary in his moment, and that necessity happened to resonate across generations. Wizkid is doing the same, creating sounds that feel essential now. Whether those sounds will feel essential to our grandchildren is a question only time can answer.
The gift both artists give us is the music itself. The legacy is what happens when we’re all gone, when the debates fade and only the utility remains — when future listeners, facing their own struggles and joys, reach for these songs and find them still potent, still useful, still necessary. That’s the only receipt that matters.
