Wizkid, Davido & the significance of leaks and piracy in Nigerian music
Streaming currently has a fledgling adoption rate, but its double combination of ease and instant is reducing the bearing effect of these factors
Ten days before release, Tyler, the Creator’s fourth studio album, ‘Flower Boy’, was leaked to the Internet in its entirety. Instead of going into panic mode and bringing up the release date, the American artist barely even acknowledged the leak, continuing with his rollout as though every step of his plan had remained intact. Usually, when a leak occurs, artists and their teams become reactive in order to retain some control, however, Tyler and his team didn’t react, and later on when the music dropped, it proved to be a positive decision.
Following on the heels of his lukewarmly received third LP, ‘Cherry Bomb’, anticipation for ‘Flower Boy’ was quite high amongst his dedicated fan base and within hip-hop listener circles. Due to the stakes, a leak should have meant reduced sales, but instead, the album managed to still gross Tyler’s highest opening week sales and Billboard Chart position at that point in his career. In the post-digital era where digital bootlegging has advanced beyond buggy LimeWire links and severely limited internet bandwidth, Tyler’s achievement was quite remarkable, and he would go on brag about it on the freestyle cut, “ZIPLOC”.
While the success of ‘Flower Boy’, despite leaking, can be regarded as an anomaly, it’s also indicative of the continued shift in listening habits, especially with the rise of streaming as the primary means of music consumption, over the last few years. At the turn of the millennium, music piracy was the major epidemic for the global music industry, and prior to that, CD bootlegs were the main issue when. This, however, wasn’t enough preparation for the rampant format of digital piracy that would follow, with the ever-evolving Internet as the enabler to this issue.
For the whole of the noughties and half of the 2010s, illegal music downloads were the major bane for artists and record labels. The Internet had helped many young people realise that they could get a lot of music without paying, and it showed piracy to be the post-release version of leaks—anyone with a CD could simply rip and upload to a website for thousands and millions more to download. Armed with technological advancements, listeners clearly wanted immediate access to all of their favourite music without having to pay as much (or even anything at all) for it.
In an interesting twist, the same Internet managed to provide the strongest combative measure, through the advent and adoption of music streaming. According to reports, music piracy was declining due to the easy, legal access streaming provides, and that phenomenon has had its effects on leaks. In addition, streaming has provided a savvier avenue for artists and labels to contend with leaks, allowing them control the narrative and spread of their releases, and that’s probably why you’ll find that even though leaks are still prevalent these days, it’s not uncommon for listeners to wait for the official version of the song and wait for the intended listening experience.
In the wee hours of October 30, 2020, Wizkid finally dropped the highly anticipated ‘Made In Lagos’, an album that was becoming something of a speculative myth with each shifted release date. After pushing it back to mid-November from its original October 15 date in solidarity with the #EndSARS protests, the revered afropop artist brought ‘MIL’ forward to October 29, possibly under the duress of an impending leak. At its allotted time, 11:11pm, the album was still nowhere to be found on streaming platforms, much to the chagrin of thousands of fans who had stayed up to catch the release as soon as it dropped.
A few minutes later, ‘MIL’ dropped relatively unceremoniously but to the same level of expected fanfare. As chaotic as they were, this sequence of events effectively combatted the leak, ensuring that a large bulk of listeners experienced the album for the first time through legitimate channels. The afternoon before its release, the Dropbox link containing the album’s pre-release version, sent to several music industry insiders and media platforms, was already being passed around and it was only a matter of how soon the entire public would lay their hands on this leaked version.
We at the NATIVE had been given legitimate access to a pre-release link, I had already listened to ‘’MIL’ for our 1-listen review column, so I didn’t listen to the content of the leaked Dropbox link, even though I wanted to. Part of that was for confirmation and curiosity: Was it the same? Was this album really going to come out? Were there going to be any changes made? Although I drifted off to sleep after it seemed like Wizkid had flouted another release date, ‘MIL’ had managed to get back-to-back spins immediately I found out it was available to stream, early the next morning. The album was really out, and even though the changes weren’t drastic, there were notable changes in the mixes of a few songs. Rather than simply holding on to the Dropbox link, I was much more comfortable listening to the officially released version of the album.
Unlike much of the larger world, the adoption rate of music streaming in Nigeria is still fledgeling. Due to high cost of data in addition to the recurring monthly cost of streaming, the idea (albeit slowly receding) that streaming is a luxury makes it such that a significant portion of listeners still rely on illegal music downloads. Regardless, the impact of the growing population music streamers, both through freemium and premium streaming platforms, has become impossible to ignore. Earlier this week, TurnTable charts reported that ‘MIL’ had raked in the biggest debut week for an album on YouTube NG, and the Burna Boy-assisted “Ginger” made history as the first number one song on the newly minted Top 50 charts, which is meant to be a reflection of the biggest songs in the country.
With these commercial achievements, it seems pertinent to wonder if ‘MIL’ would have gained this much early success if it had actually fully leaked. There’s no definite answer since it’s a hypothetic situation, however, it feels important to interrogate the consequence of leaks within the bigger picture of Nigeria’s evolving music industry. While gathering talking points for this piece, it dawned on me that our local music scene has been built on the back of piracy which is a form of intentional leaks, if you will. In the late ‘90s when eLDee pretty much instituted the Alaba model, starting with the Trybesmen, it was essentially a format where informal distributors paid a one-off price for the rights to pirate and sell an artist’s work.
The Alaba model was the dominant format for music distribution until the early to mid-2010s, with the internet and peer-to-peer sharing technology (e.g. Bluetooth) becoming more popular amongst young people. Powered by a rise in the use of Blackberry phones and other internet-enabled phones, that was basically the beginning of Nigeria’s own Limewire era, instigated by popular blogs such as Notjustok, Tooexclusive, 360nobs and more. In this period, CD sales began to decline and several artists even suffered leaks. I remember receiving M.I’s feverishly anticipated sophomore album, ‘M.I 2: The Movie’, a day before official release from a friend who had downloaded the entire album from some blog to his blackberry. While I would go on to buy the CD on the day it dropped, the ease of playing the album on my phone meant the CD didn’t get that many spins.
While artists and labels continued to sell CDs with the Alaba format, because the Internet use was still very low around here, many people decided to take advantage of these blogs, intentionally leaking their music to them in order to get as many ears as possible. Considering that live performances have always been the more lucrative revenue stream, allowing their songs to roam freely was a strategy to gain people’s attention so they would get more performance gigs. It’s still a commonly deployed strategy, and as a great example, it continues to be instrumental in the infiltration of street-bred music into mainstream afropop—the Shaku Shaku and Zanku waves were carried on the backs of intentional leaks and rampant piracy.
At the moment, there’s no tangible information about the effect of streaming on illegal music downloads in Nigeria. At the risk of being a little too optimistic, it’s clear that there’s a rise in streaming culture, even though it might be taking longer than it is in the rest of the world. The positive implication of this is that artists know that there’s a demographic who are ready to access their music through legal, revenue generating channels. On the consumer side, streaming comes with a double combination of ease and access, which becomes a habit that makes it tedious to go around searching for download links and leaks (in the case of soon-to-be-released music).
Over the weekend, one of the songs off Davido’s anticipated ‘A Better Time’, out this Friday, was leaked to social media, through no affiliations to the artist or his camp. The Nicki Minaj-assisted song has been trailed by its fair share of hype, and its leak definitely got thumbs tapping away on social media. As much as there was adequate chatter on the quality of the song, much of it still centred on its chances for commercial success when it finally saw official release. While there’s very likely unchecked proliferation going on, it’s telling that a leak doesn’t seem to be hampering a potentially huge international collaborations.
On his path, Davido hasn’t done as much as react to leak, going on with the rollout for ‘ABT’ with the recent release of “So Crazy”, the Lil Baby-assisted single that had already been scheduled. In the blog-dominated era, there’s a high possibility Davido would have run with the leak as a single, since it would already be on millions of phones. With streaming, however, it seems as though there’s a confidence that there’s a dedicated audience waiting to listen when the song is officially out, so there’s nothing to sweat.
Using situations involving Davido and Wizkid to determine the implications of leaks and piracy might seem a bit idealistic, since they’re two of the biggest superstars and so many people would naturally be paying attention and waiting for their new releases. However, that’s also exactly why they are perfect examples, because this means the stakes are really high for them. Their different approach to handling leaks shows that artists have increased agency in controlling how they want their work to be received. As I’ve been told by many artists, the process doesn’t stop until the music is out—and even in some cases, after it’s out. No artist wants their process to be disrupted by leaks and affected by piracy, and it should be a bit comforting that these factors seem to be getting less grave with each passing day.
The common trope is that Nigerians would rather not pay for music, but the truth is, music is more or less free these days. While it isn’t entirely ideal from a creator’s point of view, listeners can access music for free through multiple freemium streaming platforms, as well as premium ones for a relatively inexpensive rate. Getting the double positive of ease and instant access to official for next-to-nothing, depending on spending power, is obviously more alluring than surfing the web for illegal downloads. As more people lean into this route, the hunt for leaks and appetite for digital piracy will continue to dwindle, hopefully, up to the point where a Nigerian artist’s album can leak for days in advance and it won’t have much bearing on its potential for commercial success.
Dennis is a staff writer at the NATIVE. Let me know your favourite the Cavemen songs @dennisadepeter
READ OUR REVIEW OF WIZKID’S ‘MADE IN LAGOS’
Afropop is the love child of its many influences
In a reversal of events at the turn of the 2000s, Afropop is profoundly reshaping the texture of music...
Over the last two and a half years, some of Afropop’s biggest stars have denounced the genre to advance their personal agendas. In a wide-ranging interview from 2023 with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe just ahead of the release of his last album, ‘I Told Them…,’ Burna Boy derided Afrobeats for a perceived lack of contextual subject matter. “Afrobeats, as people call it, it’s mostly about nothing, literally nothing,” he said. “There’s no substance to it. Nobody’s talking about anything. It’s just a great time, it’s an amazing time. But at the end of the day, life is not an amazing time.”
Just a few months later, Nigerian music superstar, Wizkid, also disavowed the genre, claiming that he was not an Afrobeats act and that his then-forthcoming album, ‘Morayo,’ would not be an Afrobeats album as he considered the genre – and the classification it infers – too limiting for the type of music he made. Predictably, fans were incensed by both artists’ stances and the casual dismissal of the genre that their statements invited. What was almost lost in the whirlwind of that discourse is that for all the attempts to capture the totality of African music under the loaded ‘Afrobeats’ label, African music has never been just one thing; and, in that spirit, Afrobeats itself has always been all-welcoming of a multiplicity of influences and styles.
From its earliest iteration, Afropop has always been a potpourri of sounds that took influences from various parts of the Black diaspora and distilled them with an African sensibility. The work of early Afrobeats pioneers like Junior and Pretty is a direct descendant of the burgeoning Hip-Hop blueprint of the ‘80s; while the early 2000s popularity of Ajegunle-based rabble-rousers like Daddy Showkey, Danfo Drivers, and African China occurred tangentially to the rising profile of Reggae on a global scale. The mid-2000s to early 2010s saw the arrival of several dulcet-toned singers like Banky W and Tiwa Savage rooted in the R&B and Soul traditions, introducing a slicker dimension to Nigerian popular music. As always, homegrown stars adapted these foreign styles for their own market while continuing to work on a distinctive style that centered genuine indigenous expression and ingenuity.
Over the years, the fruit of those experiments has ripened to produce a scene that’s bustling with life and talent. As the genre has attained global attention, many sub-genres have come to the fore, showcasing the depth of African music on a global scale. If Wizkid’s sonorous melodies and unbeatable charisma made him the sun of Afrobeats in the 2010s, Olamide’s militaristic bars and Pop anthems rooted in their street sensibilities mark him out as the genre’s moon. It was on Oamide’s back that a nascent indigenous rap circuit rested. Taking the mantle of DaGrin, the Bariga-raised rapper who helped institutionalize rapping in Nigerian languages with cult classics like “Eni Duro” and “Voice Of The Street.” Along with the effort of other stars like Reminisce, Phyno, Lil Kesh, and CDQ, the indigenous rap movement gained steam and, recognizing the Nigerian market’s zest for melodies, soon morphed into Street-Pop, a distinct hybridization of local genres like Fuji, Apala, and Highlife.
Inspired by the work of their forebearers, a new crop of artists have taken Street-Pop to new heights. Zlatan and Naira Marley served as a transitory generation; together with Rexxie, they patented a more melodic take on Street-Pop while infusing a devil-may-care disposition that launched them to the top of Nigerian music. It is fitting that Olamide was the one to hand the baton to Asake, the biggest Street-Pop star of the moment. Similar to the YBNL head’s legendary album run, Asake has released three albums and one extended play in three years, each coming out to a world paying more and more attention to his work. Impressively, Asake has also established himself as a global touring star, regularly playing sold out arena concerts across the world with a music style that is rooted in Yoruba oral tradition.
Asake is not spreading the Street-Pop gospel alone, though. Ikorodu star, Seyi Vibez, has also grabbed mainstream attention for his gritty take on the genre. Initially a divisive figure, his 2023 song, “Different Pattern,” saw him reach a new level of cultural relevance in 2024 and his new extended play, ‘Children Of Africa,’ arrived in February 2025, marking a new era in his career. The yearning for a reclamation of cultural heritage that has created a Street-Pop golden era has not evaded other parts of Nigeria. Shallipopi’s drawling, sprawled-out sound mimics the playful pulse of South-South pidgin while Jeriq, hailing from Nigeria’s South-East, has emerged as one of Nigeria’s most acclaimed rappers. Outside Nigeria, there’s a yearning in Ghana to preserve the purity and history of its Highlife genre, an elemental component of Afrobeats. British-Ghanaian producer, Juls’, ‘PALMWINE DIARIES’ and ‘High Life Sessions,’ both pulsate with the beguiling riffs of the storied genre while the work of Nigerian brother-duo, The Cavemen, is reintroducing Eastern Nigerian highlife to a new generation of listeners.
A youth-led zest for exploration outside the framework of Afropop has also produced a sub-culture that rejects the tenets of mainstream conservatism. Beginning as a band of friends and collaborators who prioritized freewheeling experimentation, Alte music has emerged as one of the most important sonic evolutions of the last two decades. First championed by OG pioneers like DRB Lasgidi, LOS, and Show Dem Camp, the Alte community drew in left-field thinkers and madcap auteurs setting the stage for a new generation of stars to emerge from the depths of SoundCloud circa 2016. In the hands of stars like Odunsi (The Engine), Cruel Santino, and Lady Donli, the Alte experiment reached an unprecedented level of critical and commercial success.
Odunsi’s ‘rare.,’ throbbing with influences from ‘70s Disco and Funk, sits in the canon of great Nigerian debuts and Lady Donli’s ‘Enjoy Your Life’ artfully melded Folk music with Afrobeat and Soul across its 15 tracks. Taken along with the work of producers like GMK and Genio Bambino, these acts built a community that successfully created the blueprint for a sound that reflected the tensions and joys of younger Nigerians who saw life in a specific fashion. It even took flight beyond the borders of Nigeria with a young Amaarae cutting her teeth working alongside some of the most prominent names in the Alte community. The inventiveness and clarity of vision that the community prioritises is evident across both of the Ghanaian-American artist’s albums, ‘The Angel You Don’t Know’ and ‘Fountain Baby.’
In a reversal of events at the turn of the 2000s when Afropop was heavily influenced by outside sounds and genres, music from the continent is profoundly reshaping the texture of music outside its borders. Much like how the Windrush Generation and other immigrants from the West Indies helped to introduce Britain to Reggae, Dancehall and Soca, generations of African immigrants are making music that signals their African heritage, with Afropop as a base influence. The rise in popularity of African sounds has helped UK artists mesh the lingo and sonics from the continent into their work, creating a new genre referred to as Afroswing. Taking influences from Afrobeat, Dancehall, and Grime, Afroswing is distinctive for its use of lyrics from Africa with British rapper, J Hus, credited as one of its pioneers. Songs like J Hus’ “Did You See,” Ramz’s “Barking,” and Not3s’s “Aladdin” signal to the sound of the homeland and speak to Afrobeats’ incredible stride to global popularity as a base reference point for global Black music.
Nearly a decade out from “One Dance,” the Drake, Wizkid, and Kyla collab that pushed Afropop into a different stratosphere, the genre is in safe hands with several stars emerging across different sub-genres that speak to our past, present and future. It is perhaps more than the pioneers imagined when they were making music all those years ago, but all the roads have led here to Afropop being a global sensation that offers various forms of expression to a watching world. There are no limitations on what can be done within the genre, that sense of open-endedness and possibility was always our strength, and it’s why Afropop will stand the test of time.
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The Cathartic Melodies Of Mereba
Ahead of the release of ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire,’ we sat down with Mereba to discuss putting together her...
Mereba exudes a palpable warmth. When she speaks, as she did with me via Zoom one evening in late January, she’s gentle and perceptive, speaking in soft, meandering passages that paint an intimate portrait of the LA-based singer’s mind. Similarly, her stirring discography, which dates back to 2013, evokes a keen sense of serene intimacy. “I’m inspired by those little moments in life where you’re like “Ah that’s really beautiful,”” she tells me halfway into our conversation, making sense of the ethereal quality that her music possesses. “It could be an interaction between two people, it could be something in nature, it could be a memory I have. Those are the moments that drive me to go get my guitar and write a song.”
The 34-year-old singer, songwriter, producer and instrumentalist has been writing songs for as long as she can remember. Growing up between Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as an unintended one-year stint in her father’s native Ethiopia, ensured that Mereba picked up a wealth of influences that would go on to inform her richly diverse and understated sound. After years living across multiple cities, she finally settled in Atlanta where she became a staple in the city’s indie music circuit. “There, I met my peers who I made music with and are still my peers to this day. People like J.I.D, 6LACK and my crew. We all were just coming up during a really rich time of music there so that was a big part of my journey,” she reminisces fondly.
In the years that Mereba lived in Atlanta, she released 2013’s ‘Room For Living’ and ‘Kotton House Vol 1,’ two extended plays that neatly outline the foundations of the balmy and eclectic style that she would perfect years later, leaving ample room for her soothing vocals and evocative songwriting to shine. She also joined Spillage Village, a musical collective that comprises others like Earth Gang and JID, contributing to various releases like ‘Bears Like This Too Much’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Spilligion.’ Following her time in Atlanta, Mereba moved again, this time to Los Angeles, where she signed her first major record deal and released her debut album ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out.’
Since the release of ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ in 2019, Mereba has continued to hone her unique sound, continually experimenting and ironing out the rich textures of her temperate style on subsequent releases like 2021’s ‘AZEB.’ Ahead of the release of ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire,’ her first project in four years, we sat down with the LA-based singer to discuss the story behind her well-received debut, her various influences as well as the process of putting together her highly-anticipated new album.
This is your first album in about five years. How are you feeling?
I feel really excited. I’m definitely excited to give my music back to the world again. I’m also ready for connection, performing the songs, and sharing these new stories.
You’ve been making music for a long time now, but do you still feel any nerves before a major release like this?
I don’t know if it’s nerves. I think I feel anxious about the fact that the music is being released and people are going to hear it. But I guess I’m anxious in a good way for them to hear the music, to get to experience what I’ve been toiling away at and what I’ve been excited about for a while. It’s more like a good anxiety.
I think the first time I came across your music was in 2019. I heard “Heatwave” with 6LACK off of your debut album ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out.’ I believe that album was sort of a breakthrough moment for you. Can you tell me a bit about how it came together?
That album coming together was quite a journey. I started ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ years before it came out. I had left Atlanta and moved to L.A at this point. I didn’t know so many people when I just moved and so I was kind of starting over in certain ways. I was writing a lot of songs that felt really powerful to me but they were sonically different from what I used to make before. I was also learning how to produce, I was in Ableton learning how to make beats and just produce my music. Because I didn’t know so many people, I couldn’t outsource some of these things so I was just experimenting on my sound on my own.
Over the years, the community that I was a part of in Atlanta, everyone started finding their way in music but we still stayed closely in touch even though I had moved to L.A. I featured on a song with J.I.D and that kind of got me back into making music properly again because at that point, I was working random jobs, my car got taken and I had to start taking the bus to work. I was living a completely different life. It was my friends that put me back in the zone. They would invite me to sessions and just remind me that I wanted to do this music thing. Then I started putting together songs I had made over the years like “Sandstorm” and “Heatwave” with 6LACK which we made way before the album came out and even my solo songs like “Black Truck.” Most of the songs on that album had come from that period where I was struggling but knowing I was meant for music somehow.
How many years did it take to put your first album together?
I’ll say about four to five years. They say you write your first album for your whole life. “Highway 10” is the first song I made on that album. I made that song in 2014 and the album came out in 2019. In the years before the album came out I was signed to a bad record deal and I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t release music. All I could do was just create and that ended up forcing me to just hone in on my sound.
After your debut, you released an EP titled ‘AZEB’ two years later. Listening to that project, it felt lighter than your debut which was a lot darker and more melancholic. Do you remember what headspace you were in when you made this EP?
I was definitely feeling a lot lighter when I was making ‘AZEB.’ I felt like I had shed a lot of the weight that I carried during all those years of uncertainty. I was in a much more hopeful place when I was making one-half of the project. The other half was made during the early days of the pandemic so it was like a mix. Songs like “Rider,” “Beretta,” and “My Moon,” those songs represent beautiful, light type feelings to me while some of the other songs like “News Come,” and “Another Kin” are more intense lyrically and sonically.
Let’s talk about ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire.’ How did you land on that as the title for your second album?
The making of that title was different from how I titled my other projects. It didn’t come to me right away and I decided to not force it, I believed it was going to come eventually. So the making of this album has always felt very gentle. In contrast to what I had been through for so many years, I felt like I was in a much softer space creating this album and this feeling of a breeze just kept coming to me. It was also kind of like springtime going into the summer and the idea of a breeze became so prominent that I was going to title the album breeze. But as I continued on the journey of finishing it, it felt like the album was saying something a bit more. I realized that the album wasn’t just about all these gentle feelings and relationships I’m singing about like friendship, family, and my son but these things also inspire me to live with purpose, conviction and to have a spark in me. Things that make people “strong” are inspired by these little moments and experiences that we have and less by the force of trying to make a fire forcefully.
You co-produced “Phone Me” and “Counterfeit,” the lead singles for this project and you’ve also produced a lot of your older stuff as well. I’m curious to know how taking the reins on the production side affects your music-making process in general.
I got really into producing during that period when I felt lost in life. I got into Ableton, playing the guitar on my computer, sampling my voice and just experimenting. So songs that I produced from ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ like “Sandstorm” and “Kinfolk,” were me experimenting a lot with learning how to produce. With this new album, the first two singles were heavily produced by my co-producer Sam Hoffman. When he sends me things that I like, I’ll add things to them and it could be the opposite as well where I produce a song and I’ll have him or another friend add something to it. That process is personal because I could completely be in my world and get the feelings that I want to convey out through production as well as writing the song out lyrically. When I unlocked that part of myself, it felt like my whole life that’s what I’ve been wanting to do. To be able to make the music arrangements and compositions come to life.
A lot of the time I would start with a simple beat or drum loop and I’ll build chords over it with my guitar. I experiment with writing when it’s bare and then fill in the production as I write the song. They’re a very interwoven process.
I’ve read that you’re heavily influenced by legendary acts like Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill. Are there other acts that inspire you when it comes to the production side of music specifically?
That’s a great question. In certain ways, I’ll say it’s the same people that I look up to because most of them produce. Interestingly enough, what I love most about these musicians is that they are very involved in the sonics of the music they’re making. So the people that you mentioned, like Stevie Wonder who mentored me and encouraged me to continue on the path of producing my music versus being a singer who works with a producer. I feel like it’s important to the language of an artist to at least know how to contribute in some way to the sonics of their music.
I’ll say Quincy Jones is the blueprint for me just because of the span of work that he did. He’s the concept of producer I’d like to work towards in my life.
Do you have a favourite memory from creating ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire’?
There are a few. There was a time when I made this song on the album called “Hawk.” The song is dedicated to a really dear friend of mine who passed away unexpectedly in 2021. It was not easy to write and when I first wrote the song, it was sad, slow and reflective of the whole situation. I listened to it after I made it and I started thinking about my friend and the things that he liked. He was a very expressive and hilarious person who loved dancing and dance music. At that moment a light bulb went up and I felt like the song needed to be more of a dance song because I wanted to make something that he would love and not something he would think is corny. It was a really beautiful moment musically and personally.
If there’s one thing you would like your fans or listeners to take away from ‘A Breeze Grew A Fire,’ what would it be?
I hope it brings a sense of comfort and warmth. I also hope it tells a clear story of what matters to me. I just really hope it makes people feel better, that’s really it. I think it’s one of those albums where it’s a personal album for me and I think it’s meant for personal moments too. I hope it lives in people’s lives in comforting ways.
Listen to ‘A Breeze Grew A Fire’ here
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Is the “Mr Money” era over?
Asake broke the internet when he unveiled his new tattoos earlier this year, and he’s doubling down while...
Asake broke the internet when he unveiled his new tattoos earlier this year, and he’s doubling down while ushering in the GIRAN Republic era. On “Military”, Asake ditches the log drums & Amapiano-inspired beats that paved the way to his rapid ascent to stardom. Rapping over stripped back production dominated by a live drum loop, he picks up where he left off sonically on ‘LUNGU BOY’, drawing inspiration from his Hip-Hop influences, as he delivers a defiant, heartfelt battle-cry to his fans and doubters alike.
For the last few months, rumours have swirled around Asake on the gossip blogs, on everything from who he’s dating to his record label situation to his physical appearance, with fans, critics and disgruntled ex team members all throwing in their two cents. Since his emergence in the limelight, Asake has been a man of few words – we should know, we did his first ever magazine interview back in 2022. But on this track, he addresses the chatter head on, opening the song dismissively rapping “ Awon lo lenu won koma so lo/ Tio ba affect bank me, ko ma soro” loosely translated to “let them keep talking, if it doesn’t affect my bank account, there’s nothing to say”. He goes on to flex his financial muscle above everyone in his “set”, despite being “low-key”, while affirming he could drop an album tomorrow with no tracklist, and it would still slap.
He takes a break from the braggadocio between verses to directly shout out his mentor Olamide, the man who gave him his big break. While it does appear their business relationship may have run its course, the mercurial artist is making it clear he remembers how he got here. The Asake & YBNL run will be studied for years to come. In the midst of the continued rise in global consumption of Nigerian music, Asake hilariously raps “Oyinbo koro lenu mi”, a reminder that he will not be diluting his sound for the benefit of our friends in the West.
Quietly dropping the track exclusively on YouTube & Audiomack a couple of days after the 2025 GRAMMY ceremony, in which he was nominated for the second year running, this response may have gone over the heads of those who lurk in the comment sections of the gossip blogs. But it is the most Asake response we could have expected, isn’t it? On his own terms, in his own native tongue, he pulls no punches as he ushers in a new era of independence.
This morning, Asake released another record, the Magicsticks-produced “WHY LOVE”,which notably comes under his new imprint Giran Republic. Reverting to a more familiar sonic cocktail of pulsating log-drums and choral vocals, he sings melodiously,“You know I’m a Soulja boy, but in your case, I’ll calm down.” The duality of man.
The rumours will keep swirling and people will keep talking, as they tend to do when you reach the heights the Lungu Boy has soared to. And for all the aesthetic change and talk of a new era, it appears Asake is going to continue to do what he has done more consistently than nearly every artist in Nigeria since his mainstream emergence in 2022: drown out the noise with new music.
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