Afrobeat star Seun Kuti has credited his late father, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the legendary Afrobeat pioneer, with essentially inventing rap music.

Speaking on the Hits Don’t Lie podcast, Seun pointed to Fela’s track “Authority Stealing” as an early example of rhythmic, spoken-word verses with a political edge—delivered long before the style was officially called rap.

“Fela was the first person to rap. On Authority Stealing, he did a form of rapping, and at the time, no one knew it would later be called rap,” Seun explained, highlighting his father’s innovation in music during the mid-1970s.