For Its Next Lap, Nigeria’s Street Pop Is Pushing Into Experimental Fields
With Street Pop now packaged in colourful, ready-to-dance wrapping, it has sauntered into its most commercial lap.
Street Pop offers a small confusion with its name. The definition of “street” is by no means dogmatic, but its intended meaning couldn’t be clearer. In between our nations cracks and crevices are the streets–a place where there are only a few positives other than the music made by those craving an escape; the slums that don’t make it to sweeping drone shots of Nollywood movies. What brings the confusion is the overlapping of the literal definition of “street,” which refers to the inner-city hood, and “Street Pop,” as in the music genre, which is employed as the catch-all term for all hood-fueled music–a similar problem faced with Afrobeats.
Recently, this has become less of an issue, as Lagos has pulled ahead and established itself as the choice location from which this music is created. When the term “Street Pop” is used now, it readily calls to mind acts like Naira Marley, Zlatan, T. I. Blaze and legions more, around whom, admittedly diverse as they are, a clear circle can be drawn within which all occupants can find common ground. The commonalities these artists share also serve as a rough list of modern Street Pop’s characteristics—a theme of hustle that knows no moral bounds, a delivery composed chiefly of Yoruba and Pidgin, and a keen beckoning to God, via any religion, as the ultimate source of blessing.
Today’s Street Pop stars possess, in addition to these fundamentals, a keenness to experiment and cut bits and pieces from Nigeria’s rich soundscapes to insert into their music. Evolution and adaptation are core concepts of Street Pop and acts like Asake, Seyi Vibez, and Zinoleesky are able to pull off cross-cultural interactions of sound—high-risk, high-reward adjustments that have set them apart from the abundant competition.
One view on Street Pop’s origin is as a direct continuation of the Street music that once crowned Daddy Showkey, Danfo Drivers and Baba Fryo kings in locations like Alaba, Surulere, Mile 2, Mushin, Ajegunle and Orege, the places name-dropped by Mountain Black and Mad Melon (Danfo Drivers) in the iconic song. These parts of Lagos were a potpourri of cultures, mostly originating from Delta State, and it explains why Pidgin, Nigeria’s unofficial lingua franca favoured by South-South indigenes, was the language iconic songs like “Jogodo,” “Denge Pose,” and “Kpolongo” were delivered in.
With time, Street music moved into more Yoruba-dominated spaces like Bariga and Agege, and there it got interwoven with long-standing indigenous Yoruba genres, especially Fuji, as they flowed into the Street Pop of today. An easy case study of Street Pop’s tribal spread can be found in Danfo Drivers’ “Kpolongo.” Street Pop star Zlatan sampled the 2006 smash for a song on his most recent album and named the new song “Polongo,” with the spelling change subtly conveying that the song has shifted cultures: the Yoruba language has no ‘kp’ in its alphabet. A quartet of Street Pop figures—Zlatan and Bella Shmurda as recording artists, Rexxie as producer and Poco Lee as, well, Poco Lee—were at the helm of this remake and they recreated the track in modern Street Pop terrain while preserving its original Ragga bounce.
Another school of thought downplays the spatial connections between modern Street Pop and its Ajegunle prologue and instead focuses more on the temporal link between it and ancient genres like Fuji and Apala. Fuji’s most popular days are assumedly behind it now, but it would be a fallacy to assume it has run its course. Live instrumentation in music may have been largely replaced by electronic sound effects, but the melodies of the tuneful singing style adopted from Wéré are replicated fairly faithfully by artists like Asake, Qdot and Portable, among others.
Pre-colonial Western Nigeria had a strong Islamic base, and with the yearly occasion of Ramadan came the Wéré (or Ajisari) singers who serenaded villagers with early morning music that kept them awake for Sahur. As the music grew in popularity it came to dissociate from Ramadan, and Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister conferred on it a new name and identity – Fuji, after drawing inspiration from Japan’s famed mountain. As Wéré was a vocals-driven genre with only the most modest percussion, the Sakara drums and Goje violins were adopted from Sakara music and fused into Wéré at the creation of Fuji.
At the time, the older but lesser-known Apala was also gaining momentum, relying on the Apala talking drum that had originated when men would beat match boxes in celebration of the birth of a new child. It had its pioneers in Ayinla Omoruwa and Haruna Ishola, but their deaths in 1980 and 1983 respectively inevitably hampered the growth of the genre, robbing it of the continued influence Fuji enjoyed.
The Yoruba language is intonation heavy; the subtlest of tone changes can make the difference between complimenting a person’s beans (Èwà) or their beauty (Ewà). Wéré, then Fuji, drew heavily from this, and the earliest pioneers had the dexterity of vocals to flutter between vowels even at high notes, resulting in the signature technique of Fuji artists in drawing out the last vowel of each sentence to fill the gaps between lines.
Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (or King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal or KWAM 1 or K1 De Ultimate, depending on what decade you’re looking at) was particularly adept at this singing style, and with it, he headlined Fuji’s next generation after graduating Ayinde Barrister’s tutelage. By incorporating more Westernised instruments, he pulled in the younger generation and upper-class citizens, ultimately giving Fuji its most mainstream push. This attracted a host of other artists towards the turn of the century, as Adewale Ayuba, Akande Obesere, Saheed Osupa and more entered the scene and went on to write their names in Nigerian music history.
Pasuma deserves a special mention in the context of Street Pop. A student of KWAM 1 alongside Saheed Osupa, his keenness for innovation drove him to fuse Hip-hop and Pop. For Fuji to bleed into Street Pop, it needed to get embedded into the streets, and that was helped in no small measure by the efforts of Pasuma, who drew in younger people with his more eccentric version of Fuji, which would influence artists to adapt his cadences into modern pop beats. For his efforts, Pasuma is rewarded with references and nods from new-school artists, like Bella Shmurda (on “Rush“) and Zinoleesky (on “Rocking,” referencing his evergreen ‘Orobokibo’ album).
The Street Pop-Fuji pipeline, however, wasn’t always as open as it is today; the earliest renditions of modern Street Pop positioned it closer to Hip-Hop, and for a while, it was Nigeria’s authentic answer to the American rap scene. Dagrin’s music career ended prematurely with his tragic passing in 2010 but he was such a force that any Street Pop literature without him carries a gaping hole. His take on the genre was heavy on rap, and his portrayal of the streets warned you to expect abrasion rather than camaraderie. One of the songs he got to stamp his footprint on was a remix of Oritse Femi’s “Mercies Of The Lord,” a prime cut from a stock now affectionately known as Afro-adura (an inormal term picked up by lovers of the genre), and he brought his signature Yoruba Hip-Hop, adding another dimension to the Ragga-Gospel soundscape the original was set in.
Oritse Femi’s contribution to Street Pop extends beyond this chance mention, which is already more credit than most mainstream media gives him. His experiences in Ajegunle pushed him, as they did to others before him, into the studio, and in 2007 he emerged with songs like “Flog Politicians” and “Elewon,” leaving no doubt about his intentions for the political class. As Ajegunle’s influence in Nigerian music continued to shrivel, he left his hometown, physically and in spirit, and in 2014 delivered the Fela-inspired “Double Wahala”—his biggest commercial single at the time. Collaborations with modern Street Pop acts Reminisce (“Tomorrow”) and Olamide (Sossi’s “Sebee Remix”) helped sever any ties he had left to Ajegunle and ensured his rebirth as a Yoruba Street Pop star.
Olamide, Dagrin’s spiritual successor, started in a similarly combative way and debuted “Eni Duro” in 2010 to exaggerate his toughness and draw a mark around his territory. With time, Olamide would come to make his music more accessible to outsiders, and anthems like “Bobo,” “Wo,” “Lagos Boys” and more could be enjoyed by even those who had no connection to the backwater areas of his upbringing. With catchy slang and easy dance routines, he extends a hand to the rest of the world, taking you on a tour around his hood while sparing you the ugly corners.
With Street Pop now packaged in colourful, ready-to-dance wrapping under which its material was kept thematically light and universally accessible, it sauntered into its most commercial lap. Soon the industry would be sieged with a glut of new artists, but they were not without their own intricate demarcations. Mr. Real, Idowest, Slimcase and CDQ propagated “Legbegbe” and its many spawns, which finely interwove South African gqom into slang-driven Street Pop, and it was complete with its own dance, the Shaku Shaku; Zlatan ushered in the Zanku era, and with the help of Burna Boy and Naira Marley, brought his dance to international fame; Naira Marley went on to make headlines after his much-revered 2019 run, and after publicity was so readily provided by the EFCC, he coasted on lyrics that should rattle Nigeria’s conservative sensibilities but instead earned him a cult following.
Street Pop has become a lot more decentralised since 2019, and it is nigh-impossible to place it in any particular space at each time, given that its hundreds of creatives work without a synchronised direction. As Street Pop gains a solid footing in Nigeria and takes flight beyond its borders, today’s creatives face a competitive environment that is always a welcome precursor for innovation, and some have responded particularly brilliantly. Nigerian music is no stranger to fusions and reinventions, but more important is its quality of staying true to itself and retaining ownership of its core. We danced to Yemi Alade’s takes on Coupé-décalé as she made her claim for the ‘Mama Africa’ title, we drowned in the soulful Hiplife rhythms Mr. Eazi brought with him from Ghana and the multitude of slow burners it inspired in Nigerian music, and now we have accepted that every other Pop song will carry log drums borrowed from South Africa’s Amapiano.
At no time through multiple eras did we ever feel that the music was any less Nigerian, and now Street Pop has taken the baton to be at the forefront of Nigerian music’s quest for innovation while preserving its core elements. The inclusion of Amapiano can no longer be granted the blanket description of “inventive,” but there are musicians who go the extra mile in creating their own fusions with it, taking parts of two known elements to create something so different, it is almost an entirely new genre. Asake is one of those musicians.
2022 was Asake’s time, but while his persistent spirit and Olamide’s influence are readily credited with his success, there remains no factor more significant than the quality and novelty of the music he produced. The large log drums are unmissable, but underneath them lies subtle craftsmanship, like in the Europop-esque beats at the base of “Sungba” and “Palazzo” that give it a feel of Dance music. His use of backup choristers and anthemic choruses is another well-documented side to him, but more interestingly is the way he works them into multi-religious concepts. On “Omo Ope,” he aims for a Christian choir, depicting this with robes in the video and sectioning voices into vocal ranges. “Dull” has backup vocals chant words of prayer to ancestors in a manner common to the African Traditional Religion. On “Peace Be Unto You,” they chorus “Asalam Alaykun/ I get many many disciples,” a reference to Islam, which he reiterates in the video. His use of the Islamic religion plays a secondary role as an ode to Wéré, Fuji’s Islam-influenced precursor, and assures that his inventions will never take him too far from home – not while he possesses a hold on the historical roots of his music.
It is after delving into intricacies like this that comparisons with Seyi Vibez dissipate and don’t survive on closer inspection. Seyi Vibez’s take on Amapiano is decidedly more stripped, in that it features all of its bells and whistles (quite literally), but the biggest log drums are only sparingly applied, resulting in stretches of a song where Seyi Vibez’s signature guttural vocals float in incantation without a beat to guide them. As expected, a few have put this phenomenon down to an inability to follow a beat rather than a creative choice—as forging unconventional styles into music will always polarise listeners.
Seyi Vibez’s discography carries multiple nods to Yoruba culture and music, such as when he mutters money-seeking incantations to himself on “Chance” like an Ifa priest would: “Omo Anifowose, omo Abule sowo/ Aje wami ri, money no dull me“; or a more overt reference like sampling Apala legend Fatai Olowonyo’s “Elewure Wole” on “G.O.A.T.”
Interestingly, Fatai Olowonyo’s original track was released at a time in Apala and Fuji genres where rivalries reigned, enough to go around that many artists were embroiled in more than one. Ayinde Barrister and Ayinla Kollington turned a childhood friendship into an adult battle, flinging entire albums like weapons at each other. Ayinde Barrister was also involved in a cross-genre war with Ayinla Omoruwa, who elsewhere was tied in conflict with Haruna Ishola, a rivalry that only ended when Omoruwa conceded superiority to Ishola. Olowonyo and Omoruwa were drawn against each other though the latter was considered the more popular artist.
Seyi Vibez finds himself in similar shoes as Olowonyo today, paired against the established Asake. These comparisons, spurred by fans who cannot watch two artists succeed in a field without forcing arguments over who is greater, may provide a context to the choice of this particular sample for a song that was titled “G.O.A.T.” Asake, for his part, has wisely kept mum on the matter, but his latest single “Yoga” conveys subtle messages in its lyrics (“I dey maya/ Make nobody kill my Yoga Yoga“) and more importantly in his choice to expand the purveys of his chosen genre to prove he can flex his creative prowess anywhere.
No other Street Pop artist currently contorts the genre as much as these two, but several other acts have put together machinations to own their private spaces in Street Pop. Zinoleesky stumbled on his mellow formulation of Amapiano and Street Pop on “Kilofeshe” and owned it until just before the release of his EP ‘Grit And Lust,’ where he wandered from his comfort zone in search of fresh inspiration. Rexxie, Naira Marley’s much-preferred producer, wields chaotic Afro-house production to consistently excellent results, most recently on “Abracadabra.”
As Street Pop continues its global tour on the backs of today’s stars, it is left to be seen what new formulations tomorrow’s acts will employ to distinguish themselves. Darwin’s theory of natural selection may hold no overt connections with Nigerian Street music, but his words on adaptation as the key to survival apply to Nigeria’s rapidly populating Street Pop industry. And while many acts will not see much room for ingenuity beyond the incorporation of a log drum or two, opportunities abound for those who are willing to break the mould and take sonic risks for the culture. Nigeria’s Street Pop is coasting on its success, but a lot more innovation and ingenuity will still be needed if it is to close the gap on Afropop, its more successful cousin.
Featured image credits/NATIVE
Patrick Ezema is a music and culture journalist. Send him links to your favourite Nigerian songs @EzemaPatrick.
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Skyla Tylaa Is Taking Off
For the next phase of her career, Skyla Tylaa is actively working on creating music while entertaining with...
As a child growing up in South-east London, Skyla Tylaa had a natural affinity for the arts. Whether it was music or stage performances, she found herself exploring these interests intently from a young age. That devotion manifested in multiple ways – her attending the BRIT School and Sylvia Young Theatre School where she performed in a West End production of Annie or her fiddling with several musical instruments while she figured out her creative identity. Through it all, music was a constant, the backdrop to her home life where she grew up between Jamaican and English influences. She remembers being exposed to Drum & Bass, Funky House, and Garage. “I think that’s had a big influence in my DJ career,” Skyla Tylaa admits.
Progressing into adulthood, those musical influences persisted even if she didn’t always engage with them professionally. Things changed when she started DJ-ing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Possessed by a visceral desire to experience the euphoria of interacting with people through music, she burrowed deeper into DJ-ing. “I couldn’t be in my room and just have people commenting,” she recalls. “I need to see people’s energy, and feel everything in the moment.”
Since then, she’s enjoyed a meteoric rise that has taken the world by storm. Mentored by DJ Tunez, she performed multiple times on the American leg of Wizkid’s ‘Made In Lagos’ tour and came out of the experience raring to go. “Opening for Wizkid on his tour was a transformative experience,” she says. “It taught me a lot about resilience and adaptability in my craft. I was still pretty much a start-up DJ when I went on tour and it made me really realise how important it is to connect with the audience. Touring from city to city with different crowds, it helped me to learn how to read the room and keep the vibe going.”
Almost as importantly for Skyla Tylaa, Rihanna was present at one of those tour stops and was impressed by her set, stopping by after the show to congratulate her. “After that I felt like I could conquer the world,” she says. Since then, she’s been selected by Rihanna to DJ at a Fenty X Puma Creeper launch event in London in 2024, marking a full-circle moment between the women.
Like Rihanna, Skyla Tylaa is inspired by music from the breadth of the Black diaspora, playing sets that take as much influence from the fervid restlessness of Hip-hop as they do the wavy melodies of House music, and the dancefloor summons of Afrobeats “I love partying! I genuinely love it,” she explains. “When preparing my sets, I’m always thinking of people having a good time. Whatever I can do to connect with them, I’m down to do it!”
In the last few years, few genres have shown the propensity for inspiring a great time with the regularity that Amapiano does. From Johannesburg to Windhoek, to Lagos, London, and New York, the log drums and mutating basslines of the genre have proven integral to a new Pop framework that is as amorphous as it is exhilarating. Since first hearing the genre while on a visit to Ghana years ago, Skyla Tylaa has been hooked. “It was the log drum, the sound, just the vibes that came with it,” she says. “I was like ‘wait – what is this?’ When you hear Amapiano, it’s one of those sounds that no matter what, you’re gonna dance.”
Diving into the genre, she’s picked up valuable lessons from important figures like Maphorisa, Uncle Vinny and Major League DJz while putting her youthful spin on the sound. It’s all coming together for the DJ who’s working with her sister, music heavyweight Jada Pollock, to figure it all out one step at a time. “When I found my passion for DJing, Jada was right there, urging me to dive into the ‘Made in Lagos’ tour,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I was ready, but she believed in me and knew I could handle it. My love for music has been with me since school; it just took some time for me to realize that this was the direction I wanted to pursue. Once I found my calling, her support became endless–she attended my early gigs and pushed me to perform at major festivals like Afro Nation.”
She’s since performed at leading festivals such as Wireless, Piano People and Australia’s Promiseland as well as selling out headline shows across London, London, and Ghana. For the next phase of her career, she’s actively working on creating music. This month, she released her debut single, “Bombshell,” a searing Amapiano banger that has all the hallmarks of a potential summer hit. “Bombshell” features Tanzanian Bongo Flava act, Diamond Platnumz, as well as South African acts, Tyler ICU, Khalil Harrison, and DJ Exit. It’s a blockbuster showing that sits well in the tradition of the genre. “The idea was initially played to me by Tyler ICU in March 2024,” Skyla Tylaa says. “He and I had a session while he was in London, and this was one of the ideas we worked on. Khalil was already on it, at the time, and I loved what I heard!”
After seeding it into her live sets last summer and starting live teasers with a dance challenge, Diamond Platnumz reached out about potentially working on the song and it was arranged. “I started teasing the new version of the song in my sets and then a whole new viral dance challenge came about online in December,” she says. “From that point, I knew the track had all the elements (features included) to be a big release in 2025 !” For DJ Exit, a chance to be part of a transformative song like “Bombshell” was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up. “What drew me to this single was the chance to be part of something boundary-breaking,” he explains. “Gqom and Amapiano are both powerful in their own right, but fusing the raw, percussive energy of Gqom with the soulful, hypnotic swing of Amapiano creates a sound the world hasn’t fully experienced yet. This isn’t just another collaboration–it’s a cultural statement.”
The Xhosa word, ‘basazomangala,’ meaning ‘to be shocked,’ is uttered several times on “Bombshell,” and it reflects the message that Harrison was trying to pass on the track. ““Bombshell” is really about letting people know that there’s still so much more to come from me,” he says. “It’s a celebration of the present moment, but also a reminder that this is just the beginning. We’re all dancing to what’s happening now, but there’s an energy in the air that says the best is yet to come.”
In light of Amapiano’s rise to global prominence and the international acclaim it enjoys, Harrison is right about more things being on the horizon, and Skyla Tylaa agrees with him: “When I was introduced to Amapiano, I fell in love instantly and that time it was just on the verge of global appeal. It’s global now and still growing and that makes me appreciate it even more! I love it, and the world loves it! The feeling is mutual ! We can all enjoy it together!”
For Tyler ICU, having DJs from the diaspora like Skyla Tylaa engage with Amapiano and its culture is a win for the genre. “This shows the power of the genre–it’s not just a sound, it’s a movement,” he says. “When someone like Skyla, who appreciates the culture and brings her own flavour, plays Amapiano in places like London, New York or Toronto, she’s not just playing music, she’s building bridges. That’s how we grow–by letting the world feel it in their own way, but staying true to where it started. It’s important that the roots are respected, but the branches can reach far.”
Just a couple of weeks since its release, “Bombshell” has crossed over 650,000 thousand views on YouTube and continues to be a sensation on TikTok. Like everything Skyla Tylaa has done up till now in her career, it’s shaping up perfectly and has shown that she has a knack for the right collaborations. She intends to keep making music. “This year, my focus is all about music,” she says. “I recently signed with Robots and Humans (Sony) in the UK and Epic in the US, which has given me a different level of drive to really want to create good music. I’m also looking forward to exploring the Afro-house genre and collaborating with other talented artists.”
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What OdumoduBlvck’s Greatest School Tour Could Mean For Touring In Nigeria
The rapper’s decision to embark on a local university tour of this nature could go on to become a...
There’s no denying that OdumoduBlvck’s 2023 mixtape ‘Eziokwu’ established his musical genius. While the half dozen projects that preceded ‘Eziokwu’ almost served as target practice, largely showcasing the early iterations of Okporoko music – his unique melodious rap fusion – it was his major label debut that truly grounded the rapper in Nigeria’s rich Hip-Hop lineage. The album’s far-reaching success culminated in a historic joint tour with fellow 2023 breakout star Shallipopi, which saw the two share the stage across 9 cities in the United States. Similarly, riding the high of his latest mixtape, ‘The Machine Is Coming,’ the Anti-World Gangstar head huncho recently announced a new tour. This time, however, instead of taking his new collection of infectious bangers to stages abroad, the rapper decided to visit different universities across the country for what he calls the ‘Greatest School Tour Ever.’
Touring in Nigeria is a subject that has become somewhat controversial over the last few years, splitting opinions amongst many fans, industry experts, and artists themselves. Back in the mid-2000s to early 2010s, local touring was very much the norm. Platforms like Star Music’s ‘The Trek,’ as well as a few prominent local promoters, enabled some of the biggest names like 2face, Olamide, and M.I to hold annual nationwide tours. These tours included stops in cities like Warri, Makurdi, Owerri and many other places that artists are less likely to visit today. University tours were also popular as they presented an avenue for these artists to connect with their younger audience, who mostly served as the bedrock of their fan base.
The rise of digital streaming platforms, which has partly informed the industry’s rapid evolution over the past decade, coupled with other economic and infrastructural issues, has, however, forced a sharp decline in local touring, making it an almost altruistic endeavour in today’s Nigeria. Afropop gaining global exposure meant that the international market immediately became more viable and lucrative to our biggest stars, and this reshaped their priorities. The extensive, multi-city shows became reserved for diaspora fans, while the local audience, in most cases, are treated to a solitary annual show.
OdumoduBlvck looks to buck this trend with the ‘Greatest School Tour Ever,’ prioritizing his primary audience before tending to those abroad. In truth, the Lagos-born rapper is not the only one who has embarked on this type of tour in recent times. A couple of years ago, UK-based rapper Kida Kudz and Ckay also went on similar campus tours, with the latter making stops at 10 different universities across the country. Llona, one of the breakout stars from last year, is also currently on a nationwide tour coming off the success of his impressive debut album ‘Homeless.’ The ‘Greatest School Tour Ever,’ is however, peculiar and momentous because of its timing and OdumoduBlvck’s standing as one of the biggest names around.
At the recent 17th Headies Awards, the rapper became the latest recipient of the Next Rated award, a highly coveted plaque that’s historically reserved for standout acts whose music defines the zeitgeist at a given period. He received the award just two days after he gave an electrifying performance at Afe Babalola University. His latest mixtape, ‘The Machine Is Coming,’ a precursor to his highly anticipated forthcoming debut, currently sits at the No. 2 spot on the Turntable Top 50 Album charts. It is unheard of in recent times: that the Headies Next Rated act, who has one of the top projects in the country, is on a local university tour. The Abuja-native has, however, shown on numerous occasions that he has never really been one to abide by existing standards. The famous opening lines from his breakout single “Declan Rice” (I can do without their Policy I Know), did not only serve as a message to gatekeepers and naysayers but also as a manifesto that declared his mode of operation going forward.
At the time of this writing, the rapper has only made two stops on his ongoing tour, but his decision to embark on a local tour of this nature already looks to be paying dividends. The first two shows have produced viral clips that capture his star power, the hysteria of his headline shows and his rapidly growing influence, especially amongst younger listeners. The viral clips have already created an increased demand for shows, with many young fans harassing the rapper to add more dates to the tour. With the release of ‘The Machine Is Coming’ and his recent crowning moment at the Headies, it’s safe to assume there’s more attention on him now than ever. While it is, of course, still early days, the rapper’s decision to embark on a local university tour, especially given that he’s currently experiencing a career high, could go on to become a significant moment, one that potentially inspires a shift in the touring landscape in Nigeria.
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NATIVE PREMIERE: Tanika Is Stepping Out On Her Terms With The Kida Kudz-Assisted “FAST FWD”
From working her way out of London’s Myatt’s Field, Tanika is now setting her sights on the bright lights...
Across a career that’s in its second decade, Tanika has proven to be a force in her own right, holding her own on collaborations with Black British stars like Stormzy and Wretch 32, as well as popular record producer Naughty Boy–working with the Grammy-nominated beatmaker on his acclaimed ‘Hotel Cabana’ album.
Following a stint as an actor, she returned to the studio in 2021, releasing a new extended play, ‘333,’ in 2023. The project carried all the hallmarks of Tanika at her tantalising best: lilting cadences, well-paced narratives, a songwriting that reaches for the heart of the matter.
On her latest song, “Fast Fwd,” she’s growing into her own and stepping into a new era. In many ways, “Fast Fwd,” a hypnotic, sultry anthem, is landing just in time for summer revelry. Produced by her longtime collaborator, Naughty Boy, her silky vocals land effortlessly on the mid-tempo instrumental and pulsates with her desire for her love interest.
Joined on the song by her fiancé, Kida Kudz, they make an interesting duo and replicate the synergy they had on “Nobody,” off Kudz’s 2021 ‘Top Memba.’ Distinctively marked by use of neon lights, the video for the song captures the effervescence of romance that Tanika hums about throughout the song.
From working her way out of London’s Myatt’s Field to becoming a star with millions of streams, Tanika is now setting her sights on the bright lights of superstardom. Ahead of the official release of the single, we had a brief chat with Tanika about her career, the influences for “Fast Fwd,” and working with KIda Kudz on it.
Her answers, which follow below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
How would you describe where you are in your career right now?
I’m just enjoying the journey.
What does the release of “Fast Fwd” signify for you?
It signifies love.
Why is Kida Kudz a fit for the song? (
To be honest, we didn’t plan to do another song together. I have worked on two records with him before (“Nobody” and “Tasty Time” ) but we never thought to shoot a video for it.. “Fast Fwd” felt like a real testimony of our present moment in the relationship.
You’ve worked extensively with Naughty Boy and he’s helped with “Fast Fwd,” what’s your relationship like and why does it work?
Naughty Boy knows me very well. We’ve known one another for over 10 years, so he knows what fits me musically. We gel. I think him knowing me and being a fan of Kida’s music made it all work. Naughty Boy does his listening before he makes a beat for you. A lot of producers don’t really understand the importance of knowing the artist musically but he does.
What were you aiming for with the video?
To be honest, I’m aiming for nothing. I’m just enjoying the journey. It’s been a very long road and I know I still have a long way to go.
Catch an exclusive view of “Fast Fwd” below.
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