Over the weekend there was so much talk about Sarkodie's appearance on
BBC and his comment that he gave birth to azonto. His appearance on
BBC showed how big an artiste he has become, how well he is known all
over the world and importantly the kind of impact his music has made.
However, his comment that he gave birth to azonto seemed to have
sparked so much controversy as to who exactly gave birth to azonto.
Names like Gasmilla, Stay Jay, FBS, Akoo Nana (now Nahna) and that of
Sarkodie seem to be associated with azonto and make it very difficult
to attribute the birth of azonto to just one person. In an exclusive
interview with Flex Newspaper, Gasmilla, one of Ghana's hiplife
artistes' with the current "3 points" hit track, he noted that it is
not true that Sarkodie gave birth to azonto as the dance has been in
existence for a long time and is mostly done by Ga communities.
Gasmilla revealed that he was the first musician to produce an azonto
video and that his "aboodatoi" track which helped to bring to the
forefront in the music industry was first uploaded by legacygh on July
28,2011 and was later uploaded by Ghanapromo on their YouTube channel
on September 18,2011. He also noted that Sarkodie does not have the
audacity to claim ownership of azonto as he (Gasmilla) released a
tutorial on the azonto dance on November 11, 2011 long before Sarkodie
released anything on azonto. The release of the azonto dance tutorial
helped him get the chance to work with MTN and has also had the
opportunity to be featured in hundreds of documentaries on azonto.
Gasmilla explained that in as much as azonto has been around for a
long time, he is the first musician to have commercialized that dance
before the likes of Fuse ODG and Sarkodie helped to push azonto
worldwide. He explained that through his work of making azonto
recognized in the music industry, he has had many media institutions
like BBC, VOX Africa, etc and many scholars coming from distinguished
Universities all over the world to interview him and produce
documentaries on him, in which he educates them on how to do the
azonto dance.
