Nigerian singer Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, professionally known as Ruggedman, has critiqued the generalization of the African music industry under the 'Afrobeats' genre.

The veteran singer, while speaking in a recent interview with Day Genius, expressed his dissatisfaction with the generalization, noting how he had bemoaned it previously, however, he was criticized.

He mentioned how during his performance abroad, he gets tagged as an Afrobeats artiste, highlighting how the trend began from people in the UK labelling every African music as Afrobeats.

Ruggedman further claimed that the genre is a camouflage for talentless Nigerians to hide behind, maintaining that a good beat and street slang can easily make a singer gain fame.

"I don’t like Afrobeats as an umbrella genre from every music coming out of Africa. That was a mistake. I didn’t liked it from the beginning but when I complained people accused me of being jealous or trying to gatekeep.

“Right now, if I go to the UK to perform, I would be tagged an Afrobeats artistes. It is wrong.

“It is the people in the UK who started this thing of tagging every African music Afrobeats. Nigerians love classicism. They just wanted to give it a name.

“For me, Afrobeats with an ‘S’ is a name talentless Nigerians hide behind. All you need to make an Afrobeats hit is just to get a good beat and a street slang and repeat it as many times as you like. Then spend a lot of money to promote it. That is the Afrobeats with an ‘S.'