If we all agree that Teni is a lovable character – and thus, we can’t hate her – we just have to agree that everything she does is in furtherance of that character.
In a minute-long video, the 33-year-old teased new music as she introduces her new genre: BollyBeat. The snippet (unsurprisingly) sounded like a Bollywood movie soundtrack, and even more Bollywood-like than many of the tracks on Rema’s “HEIS.”
However not all fans are delighted, and for good reason. Firstly, how many sub genres of Afrobeats do are out there again? Let’s do a runcheck: Afrorave (Rema), Afrofusion (Burna Boy), the so-called Afro Depression (Omah Lay), Afropiano, Igbopiano and all the babies Amapiano begat.
Secondly, is this just ragebait to get back into an industry that has moved on from Teni and if it is, will it be successful? Time will tell. But from audience reception, this simply ain’t it.
What this is also not is cultural appropriation. Music is past such now.