BBC Newsbeat
"That wasn't really something that they could market or promote in that kind of arena that I was actually playing in." Some of his projects - like building a "real-life Wakanda" in Senegal with its own cryptocurrency - haven't panned out as planned. "I can enjoy doing it without dealing with politics, and the music business that comes with it," he says.
"It was one of the things that was so frustrating, trying to get them to understand the African population was so big, and this music will be the future.It would be another 10 years before Afrobeats fully broke through, with huge artists like Drake and Beyonce collaborating with some of its biggest stars.
"And I think social media had a huge role to play in expanding the sound of different genres, because we didn't really have any platforms," he says.