In 2012, a tense first meeting with Olamide led to a defining moment for Afrobeats in the UK. What began in a hall in Barking became a stress test for culture, infrastructure, and visibility. This is the story of how friction, scrutiny, and deliberate scale helped move street-rooted Afrobeats from community halls to institutional stages.

In 2013, I promoted Davido’s first major UK show at London’s INDIGO2 — my first solo concert without partners. Afrobeats was still emerging in the UK, and touring outside London was a risk. The show sold out. The tour travelled. Demand was not just discovered, it was created.

In 2024, backstage at The O2 Arena after Davido’s sold-out show, he reminded the room that SMADE did his first UK concert “when the year nobody wanted to.” That moment showed how far Afrobeats has come — and how belief compounds over time.

In 2012, Afrobeats in the UK lived in community spaces. Student halls, clubs, house parties, barbershops and butchers. Flyers taped to shop windows. BBM broadcasts and chain messages lighting up phones. Conversations carried from hand to hand.

The culture moved on belief before validation. It moved through people.

What many see today are stadiums and global milestones. What often goes unseen is the apprenticeship. The years where nothing was promised and everything was earned through patience, humility, and repetition.

That was 2012.