Rotimi performing an acoustic version of ‘Love Riddim'.
Who knew Rotimi could hit these notes clearly, even better than the original. Live from Lagos, Nigeria!
Burna Boy to White People: "My Africans are suffering. Dance to my music, brand me a reformer and reward me financially.
Burna Boy to the suffering Africans: "God punish una."
Thugs have destroyed ballot boxes and threw away the ballot papers at Oba Elegushi.
I collected a couple of slaps for fighting back before I got pulled from the melee, into a house for my safety.
Now I have to be smuggled out of the voting area because I have been marked.
Football Fans Watch Match In Flooded Bayelsa Viewing Centre
Some football fans braved the flood in Bayelsa State to go and watch a match at a flooded viewing centre.
My younger sister just started making her money, and as symbolism, she gave me all her first salary as "gratitude" for being her father.
As the elders have taught me, I received the money, prayed for her, took N2,000 from it, and gave it back to her.
She'll go far in life.
Whitemoney used to be my barber when I lived in Ojuelegba. And he was so jovial a guy. When he won, I wanted to DM him congratulations out of joy, but didn't because he's swarmed by the world.
And now, he's come to look for me. Happy that I'm also doing well. Warms my heart.
For the first time in Nigeria, we have an artist that has become so big that fans are launching music careers based on his fame and impact.
Wizkid's impact on our culture is well documented, but when fan songs about you blow, that's another level of demonstrable greatness.
Omah Lay makes music for extremely bad boys that appear innocent and pristine on the outside, but battle plenty of demons on the inside, and will shift your insides without hesitancy, while telling you that their mental health is connected to your waistline.
RE: Burna Boy and Nigerian music lack of substance.
Whenever Burna Boy has to sell a new album to a foreign, Westernised market, he finds a divisive narrative to bestow him exceptionalism in a market that does not know his backstory or lack proper context to process his
Nigerian Police: You shoot gun for club
Burna Boy: I no get gun o.
AKA: *Dies.*
Burna Boy: I been show AKA my gun. I even tell am make him get him own.
😂😂😂
8 years old, I watched my parents die.
At 9, I ran away from home. At 11, I ran away from another home.
At 20, I did the same, ran away from another home. At 21, I lived in an uncompleted building. At 14, I once spent a night on the street with sex workers at a junction in PH.
I asked my security men, "how Easter go be na?"
And they said, "we no dey worry. Na you get us, you be our Oga."
Me: "So who con get me? I no deserve better thing too?"
Them: "We don find our Oga, you go find your own Oga."
10 years of Mavin:
First batch: Dr Sid, Tiwa Savage, Wande Coal, D'Prince, DJ Big N.
2nd batch: Korede Bello, Di'Ja, Reekado Banks
3rd batch: Ladipoe, DNA, Johnny Drille.
4th batch: Rema, Crayon, Ayra Starr, Magixx, Boy Spyce
I've conducted over a thousand interviews with Nigerian musicians.
And when you talk to a lot of artists about their origin story, only two names continue to show up across multiple storylines as 'helpers' and early supporters of careers.
Davido and Olamide don try well well.
Afrobeats Hall of Fame will never be complete without honourary mentions to Yahoo boys who funded and kept alive an industry with no institutional or corporate funding. It's a reality we hate to admit, but huge parts of Nigerian music history and success were built on cybercrime.
If I dey with my babe and Burna Boy kick my head for concert.
I go just turn nod any random person mouth, to assert dominance and save my relationship.
Falz also started getting less popular love, once he carried activism on his head.
Una love the optics for social media, but una no dey ever stream the music.
More mouth, less commitment to the aluta life.
Basketmouth chased Wande Coal for two years, before he could get him on his new album.
He finally caught him when someone snitched on Wande, that he was at Aristokrat's office.
When he got the beat, Wande Coal kept recording and recording. Made over 10 hooks on the same beat.
Now I finally understand why Burna Boy has this running disdain for Nigerians.
According to his expression on "Thanks," ft J. Cole, he feels unappreciated at home.
Burna believes Nigerians don't give him enough plaudits for his exceptional contribution to, and representation
When Black Sherif begin blow for Nigeria with Burna Boy, you know what he did?
He ran to Lagos, did a lot of media, hustled radio and all the channels, attended multiple writers and production camps, and recorded a lot of collaborations.
Today, he has a Number 1 in Nigeria.
The swashbuckling of Ruger. The bluster of Burna Boy. The braggadocio of Davido. The melancholy of Omah Lay. The reticence of Wizkid. The joie de vivre of Ayra Starr. The magnetism of Asake. The mystique of Rema. The vivacity of D'banj. The generousity of Olamide.
Nah. We aren't fans. We are human beings with empathy, mourning the loss of a good man who uplifted his community via music, business and a large heart.
BTW, You are an idiot.
I'm old enough to remember when Nigerian artists will walk into banks for creative loans, and the corporations will laugh them out of the office.
What did we do? We went to the underworld and got funding.
I'm old enough to remember when our music industry was flooded by
For those saying "I would have used the opportunity to talk to Wole Soyinka..."
Well, I have shared a seat with Wole Soyinka at the OR Tambo in South Africa waiting for a flight. Everyone who tried to talk to him was declined with a hand wave.
To Jesus be your glory.
Wizkid and Chris Brown just melt into each other. One genius bleeding into the other, passing the sweetness between each other, with round after round of pure flow.
One of the finest integrations of Wizkid's talents in a foreign collaboration. It's a clutch affair.
I conducted an interview last year with a survivor of the massacre. After the army left LTG, the police came in and kept shooting people point blank in their heads.
That was the sickest interview I ever had. I dey cry, person wey I dey interview dey cry. Staff dey follow cry.
Artist: Nigerian
Living in: USA/UK
Management: USA
Recording Camp: USA/Ghana
Song format: Caribbean/Pop
Distributor: USA
DSPs: USA and Sweden
Album Released in: UK
Concerts: UK and USA
Nigerian fans: “O, our beautiful culture is growing. O Nigeria, my Nigeria.”
What Davido isn't telling you with the rebrand of DMW is that he's moving from a "charity" model to a label business model.
The first iteration of DMW wasn't a proper label. It was a philanthropic incubator, where artists received funding without remittances, even after success.
I respect Basketmouth for one reason: pivoting.
The standup comedy business in Nigeria is struggling due to the digitalisation of content and how hard it has become to bring people into a shared large space for laughter.
He looked at music, said "I'm good at this," and won.
Burna Boy isn't making music for us again.
That thing he's been trying to tell us for a long time, that he isn't a Nigerian artist. He's finally acting it out in his career.
Yes, he started off as an Afrobeats artist, but his creative ambitions are finally beyond our borders.
We no longer release Nigerian music from Nigerian offices.
Our funding no longer comes from Lagos offices.
The biggest players in our music are no longer Nigerians.
Now our artists no longer want to perform for Nigerians?
You don't see a pattern? We're losing our recipes!
Adekunle Gold pranked Simi on Nigerian Idol, posing as a super fan and bringing her a birthday cake from backstage.
It's so sweet, I could cry right now, but my toxicity says I should man up and ignore his intentionality.
#NigerianIdol
''Wednesday's'' Jenna Ortega reveals in a new interview that her favourite Nigerian artist is Portable.
''I've been so obsessed with him ever since I found out who he was. I listened to all his songs and found him amazing!''
Congratulations to Wizkid for going Gold in the US via Made in Lagos.
First Nigerian artist to break the ceiling. One of the greatest Nigerian albums to ever grace this earth.
Well done, everyone!
Two big reveals in Mohbad's termination letter to Naira Marley/Marlian Records:
1. He didn't get an advance for signing the deal, although it was promised.
2. He has no access to his music data. Not logs, not streaming numbers, not even best performing cities.
Nothing at all.
We're losing many stories of Nigerian musicians who never became the leaders of their league, but had tangible impact.
I googled yesterday, no one told the story of Orezi. And if you didn't witness him do his thing with 'Rihanna,' you will never know he once rocked his corner.
If you listen to the beginning of Burna Boy and Zlatan's original version of "Killing Dem," you'll here Tinubu's statement on stage.
"Abulabulabula..."
When Asake pay for promotion. Wizkid pay promotion. Burna pay promotion.
One small artist go dey somewhere dey think say na grace.
Grace is not a currency in the music industry. The space is optimised to kill your grace.
Go and look for money. They no dey tell person twice.
38-year-old Chris Brown sings about having nasty sex.
Twitter NG: One of the greats!
32-year-old Wizkid sings about having sex and appreciating women!
Twitter NG: He's so monotonous. Sing about oil spillage in my village or I stop listening!
My heart is with Ice Prince.
If you know how Nigerian police officers lie and entrap you when things don't go their way, you'll never believe everything they say, especially when they see an opportunity to chase PR spotlight as victims of the populace.
Why is Dababy not having one-on-one with local Nigerian rappers? No meet-and-greet? No hailings?
"wE nEeD tHE CUltuRe to resPect Nigerian wrappers."
You rappers should go and drag Davido na. Since entitlement is usually your first name. 😂😂😂
Amapiano originates from the Igbo phrase, 'Ama Piano.'
Ama means 'know,' in the Igbo language.
Amapiano translates into English as "Knowledge of Piano."
There you go. I am the first music journalist to document the original definition of Amapiano. Guiness come and see o!
Fireboy is the first artist tonight to win two Headies trophies. From two different albums. Talk about range, quality and elite artistry. Congratulations to a super creator, super performer, and super artist.
#14thHeadies
Wizkid and Chris Brown found balance. And it is along that centre of equilibrium that the sweetness occurs on the new record.
R&B meets Afrobeats, Pidgin meets English, Verse meets Hook. Guitars finds horns.
Finely divided. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
Wizkid isn't our first Nigerian winner. We have Sikiru Adepoju with that honour. He won in 2009.
Wizkid is the first Afrobeats artist to win, and the first Nigerian pop act to get that trophy.
Not first Nigerian ever.
Congratulations to Burna Boy for winning the Grammy for Best Global Music Album with 'TWICE AS TALL'.
His album becomes the first Nigerian album to win a Grammy, the first Afrobeats album to win.
There's no man more deserving of his Grammy nomination than Davido.
He's held us down for over a decade, transitioning his art through generations to maintain a prolific, sublime, steady stream of art.
High traffic, high impact, this is long overdue, and comes too far into
If you want to know the connection between Naira Marley, his life of drugs in the UK, creating a violent No Mannaz gang, and his music, watch this Noisey special with him.
He breaks down why he joined a cult, created a gang, and how music connects it all.
You guys might clown Rema and Selena Gomez, but the young man and his handlers were right to put her on that remix.
The song has done its work in these parts, she's pretty much a vehicle to push it to a new, distant demographic.
It's not for Nigeria, not for local consumption.
I've been listening to SFTOS, and my heart bleeds each time I remember that the project's only sin is that it came before it's time.
Wizkid was releasing records that Nigerians and the world needed time and education to catch up to.
Home and abroad, many didn't understand it.
Hung out with a Somalian girl tonight, and once we walked into her room, she asked Alexa, to "play a Wizkid jam."
And Soundman began to blast from her speakers. I feel very much at home here.
This boy Spyro received his biggest ever song by working with worldly-adjacent artists. He chose Tiwa Savage for a collaboration over his faith-based colleagues.
Chioma Jesus and Dunsin Onyekan lost out on "who's your guy," remix.
He's also signed to a worldly label, performs
Since Biafra is now justification, and we can use our past pain to express wickedness against anyone.
My people in Akwa Ibom suffered heavily from Igbo invaders who slaughtered us in droves and pillaged our lands. Should I also wish excruciating death on the Obi of Onitsha?
According to reports, Wizkid's 'Essence' ft Tems has finally cracked the 1 million sales mark. That means an RIAA platinum certification is on the way.
This has never been done before, and raises the ceiling on what success can look like in African pop music.
Congratulations!
RE: Davido "Burna Boy" new cat comment
There's a huge distinction between
1: the number of years an artist has put in music.
2: The number of years they have put in the industry.
3. The number of years the artist has spent within the mainstream music framework.
Based on
When Wizkid didn't have money to record, he hung around the studio at Knighthouse, waiting for people to pay for sessions and not use the entire slot.
When he could get lucky, he used it. That's how he could get any time on the mic. That's the foundation of his studio time.
Never in doubt about Wizkid. Not for one moment did my heart shake or tremble.
As he’s proven again, he’s got it covered for now, for tomorrow, for always. Blessed beyond art. Gifted beyond reproach. Music beyond comprehension.
More Love, Less Ego. Bring it on, we’re ready!
I swear tech bros could be kidnapped by bandits and they’d be on twitter like:
“I spent 700 hours being questioned by capitalist bandits. Here’s what I learned in captivity, and how it made me a better Startup Founder.
A thread 🧵"
What bursts my head the most about Arsenal X Odumodublvck collab is they needed him and his art enough to say, "these parts are not safe for work. Clean it up a bit, and let's get this ball rolling. Give us a refix for corporate."
What inference does that provide? What does it
Chris Brown has my ultimate respect as the most American Afrobeats artists. One of the earliest to embrace our sound and collaborate with our acts at the start of our global campaign, he's remained accessible to this market.
Wizkid, Davido, Rema and Lojay now have him on songs.