‘Azonto’ qualifies to be a music genre – Gasmilla

The self acclaimed King of ‘Azonto’, Gasmilla has called for what started as a dance craze and has evolved into music to be officially considered a “genre of music”.
According to him, Azonto started as a dance and evolved beyond a movement, going through the phases of genre creation just like Hip-hop.
“Azonto has moved through all the phases of creating a genre. Hip-hop was all about dance back then and soon a sound was created for the dance and after that, there was a movement and a genre was created out of the dance move. So for me, Azonto has gone through all these phases and it is about time we made it into a genre”, he stated.
The musician in an interview of Y97.9FM’s Dryve of Your Lyfe show hosted by Nana Kwasi-Wusu called for the industrialisation of Azonto. “We need to industrialise it and make it pay so that our next generation will add their vibes to it and make it better”.
Gasmilla started wearing the T-shirt with the inscription “Azonto to the World” for almost 3 years and sought to promote it.
He believes Ghanaians did nothing wrong in making Azonto dormant but believes it is so now because of Ghanaian nature. “As typical Ghanaians, we tend to abandon things even before they reach their maturity stage. We are so creative that we create stuff and let go of them. But the same thing we created and let go off, Jamaicans have done otherwise. They have made dancehall and reggae”.
The Azonto King however believes the genre is still alive and can be revived.
Azonto is a communicative dance believed to originate from “Apaa” which literally means to work.
Apaa was used to show the profession of an individual. The azonto dance has since grown further to relay coded messages.
The dance later got into the minds of most Ghanaians. In the same year (2013), most Ghanaian music videos were full of Azonto dance and later spread to most African countries and other parts of the world.
By: Joel Sanco