Although the bassist is one of the least singularly visible members of a live band, much of the rhythm the audience perceives travels directly through the bass guitar’s low-frequency range. In contemporary live performances, especially in genres such as Amapiano, Afrobeats, and high-energy African gospel, the instrument links raw percussion and harmonic structure. It responds to the drummer and helps drive the sound’s physical movement. 

This interplay took centre stage on September 19, 2026, at TEDxWibsey, hosted at the Bradford Arts Centre, where Iteoluwa David Akinsete performed as an accompaniment to Samuel  Ogundapo (Dayo Sax). The segment’s success relied on the dynamic interplay between bass guitarist Iteoluwa David Akinsete and his wider ensemble. A common arrangement would have been to make Iteoluwa Akinsete a background accompaniment, but instead he functioned as a co-architect of the set as they worked through inventive performances of Kenny G’s “The Moment” and Asa’s “Jailer.”

The performance opened with smooth phrasing inspired by Kenny G, deliberately utilising familiar jazz aesthetics to draw a diverse auditorium into a shared emotional moment. Akinsete’s performance recontextualised the music, grounding a mainstream smooth-jazz framework inside a distinct African sonic heritage that brought the performance of “The Moment” alive. His position in the group acted as a stabilising anchor, holding onto the low-frequency bass necessary to keep the key players aligned.

At turns across the performance of the song, his execution provided the critical artistic weight of the set, dictating the shift in cultural energy as well as carrying the emotional undertone of the performance through strings. His ability to move from steady, ambient room-filling resonance to sharp, syncopated African pocket-playing provided its physical drive. Without that structural anchor, the performance risked remaining a pleasant interlude; with Akinsete establishing the rhythm, the set became a compelling demonstration of cross-cultural adaptation and artistic dialogue.

By the time that Asa’s “Jailer” was broached, Akinsete’s groovy basslines took on a place of more distinctive prominence. The basslines percolated as the rhythmic undertones shifted, bringing a sense of relief to a charged performance. The performance demonstrated how a lead bassist can hold the dynamic centre of an intellectual assembly, driving rhythmic movement while maintaining the clarity required for a seated, attentive audience.  

Throughout Akinsete’s performance at TEDxWibsey, he demonstrated how an essential band member operates as a cultural and technical bridge. By bringing the rhythmic complexity of Western and African live arrangement onto a TEDx stage, his work shows that consistent technical discipline and stylistic adaptability enable an instrumentalist to articulate complex ideas and establish a clear artistic identity across global cultural networks.