WHY DAVIDO IS ARGUABLY THE MOST HARDWORKING AND EVOLVED NIGERIAN ARTIST

 David Adedeji Adeleke. We can all agree he needs no further introduction, yeah? Well let me add he’s 25, a song writer, producer, music tycoon and philanthropist. OBO as he’s preferably called, which is an acronym for Omo Baba Olowo meaning the son of a wealthy man, his career is as good as it can get for a Nigerian artist.
   
 Davido made a dive into the Nigerian music industry back in 2011 with “back when” featuring Naeto C. His first official single on HKN label which is Co owned by his brother Adewale Adeleke. Even though Back when received massive airplay on our radio and TV channels, it failed do the job of driving Davido into our hearts and it was just one of those regular songs we come across everyday. Subsequently he came with the massive hit “Dami Duro”. This one was officially the introduction of the davido brand for me, though I’m still one of those who doubted his ability to last a while in the industry and thought he’s the usual one hit wonders that come take a bite and leave, specifically for the fact that you can tell he’s not much of a good vocalist. Dami duro was pretty much jumpy, skeletal lyrical content and a bragging right display. Well I’m glad he proved me wrong. At this point dami duro was everywhere and his Omo Baba Olowo catch phrase was in everybody’s mouth. It created so much buzz and many Showbiz critics/ analysts rested the success of dami duro to his privileged background. If you’re still of the opinion that davido solely owes the success of his music career to his family’s financial buoyancy then you need to take a rethink.

 While caught up in the hype of dami duro he threw another jibe at us Ekuro and a visuals for it in the US (Immediate visuals for all his songs always gives him an edge) and this is precisely where he got my attention. Firstly for the fact that it was a total different thing from his previous release, I could connect and relate to the song even though I barely understand yoruba, the lyrical structure, how they were laced into the beat and the effort to do more on the vocals just shows you he’s gone back to his drawing board to reassess and improve his content. Within a short period he released overseas featuring shina Rambo with an immediate visuals alongside. He topped it with Gbon Gbon, All of you and feel alright. I’m pretty much excited about ‘All of you’ among the last mentioned songs, it had this slow aggressive vibe to it and how his last syllables of every bar punched right on the Instrumental’s hard kick. The space between dami duro and all of you was barely a year and you can obviously point out countless improvements in every aspect of music composition involved in his genre.

 At this point it was getting clear he has come to stay and defied every odd that might have possibly played him out or restrict him from thriving. He Went ahead to release his debut Album Omo Baba Olowo (we all would have guessed the title) comprising of all the previous mentioned songs and few more additions to sum it all up. Akon subsequently jumped on Dami duro and gave him a remix. He then started creating a Niche for himself and gradually stepping up to be a household name in the industry and obviously being a threat to some industry heavyweights.

He ushered us into 2013 with “Gobe” , it’s needless to explain how big of a song Gobe is and how it turned a very popular slang amongst Nigerian youths. In the span of two years, 2013-2015, he released Gobe, One of a kind, Skelewu, Aye, Tchelete, Naughty, Owo ni koko., The sound, The money. Sigh! These songs are part of songs that held the industry down within those years. One of a kind was truly one of a kind and an experimenting style for davido, a bit jumpy but quite thematic and very danceable.

 Skelewu! Skelewu! Skelewu! It had its controversies about the origin of the dance but it thrived regardless. Skelewu blew up in few days, without a video,  the dance competition put up by davido on Skelewu for set amount of prize just blew it up in more folds. Skelewu is probably the only non remixed Nigerian song with two videos. The first was shot by Sesan in Nigeria which contained more of the dance for me but poor visuals and Davido was obviously not satisfied, there was no hard feelings obviously as Sesan shot videos for him subsequently. He decided to team up with Moe Musa once more in the UK for another Skelewu video installment. This time the picture was crisp clear, Nice location, storyline but less of the dance which is what we were majorly looking out for but it banged anyway. Aye then came through, Yo! Skelewu was still banging and running chats when threw Aye, me and my friends were still working on a choreography routine geared towards the competition and this man just churned out a new hit caring less. This is actually showing you how hungry and hard he’s been working. Now let’s look at what “Aye” fed us. Davido just showed us he’s not scared to jump I’m and out of different genres and give the best at it. Aye is an Afro Rnb/ pop, slow paced but danceable,  the lyrics were very catchy and resonated with the typical Nigerian music lover. “She no want ferrari, she no want versace, she say na My ove O”, Davido has definitely got a way of creating a buzz out his playful lyrics. The Visuals for Aye was another phase of Davido going out of his comfort zone. He played a village farm boy in love and aside the story, you could see clear happiness in his portrayal of the character unlike some artists who still let their real self cloud a one minute character in a music video. Tchelete came through featuring Mafikizolo, at that point more or less a combo of Nigeria’s best and south Africa’s best. He was the MAMA artist of the year at that point, so he was basically ruling Africa’s music scene. Tchelete ruled multiple chats for many weeks as well. “Naughty” with Dj Arafat was released and Asap “the sound” featuring Uhuru and Dj bucks. Did you see what he’s done with these three last songs? Putting on Africa’s heavyweights. The sound was very massive and it dominated the charts for quite awhile. At the end of 2015, he closed with “the money” featuring Olamide baddo. This song was also Davido being davido, flaunting the cash luxury and bragging rights. It surely did figures on digital sales and the charts.

 Davido took a long break after “The money” ft Olamide, but I’d like to outline all features he’s gotten from other artists and how every song he touched turned to gold, either original or a remix. I recall his first major feature to be “Carolina” by Sauce kid Sinzu! (Where is he though?) He produced the song and took the chorus, Carolina was an anthem in the streets and parties. He got featured on LKT’s Alaye and I can say without doubt, that’s LKT’s biggest song till date. He got featured on Sheyman’s paper which was a regular song before the remix with Davido. Reminisce Ibile! Put him on “l’owo daddy” and Reminisce had himself a monster banger there with davido on the chorus. Lil Kesh decided to put him on for a Showing remix. He self acclaimed to make shoki blow up, that’s the truth since the original featured Olamide and did barely half the remix did in terms of airplay and gigs. Vector had him on Omo mummy. Guess Davido was the only choice for vector to get when going totally Afro pop. Diamond Platinum all the way from Tanzania been rolling with the song “Number one” for a while and decided to get davido on the remix, Diamond has been winning awards every year consistently since the year of the the number one remix. The remix literally shot him to the world and gained him mass appeal. Lastly is Osinachi by humblesmith. You can verify all my previous feature facts with thus one. Humblesmith intended to get Davido for the original song but davido’s schedule made it impossible and he decided to put Phyno on. The song was beautiful, Phyno did a wonderful job but it was just a regular song you just listen to once or even skip through till early 2016 Davido called up humblesmith to schedule a remix since he’s less busy and a visuals followed simultaneously. It’s safe to say that Osinachi REMIX is humblesmith’s biggest song till date and we all know who he owes it to after God. *smiles*

Davido made a comeback to the industry late 2016. I was mad about that break though, like he missed out on so many awards. He came through firstly with “Gbagbe Oshi” I was dazed by what he did here, like this Nigga tries everything and it turns out good. The verse where he tried some reggae stuff got me hyped “Son of the gun, lyrical assasin” . But I surely knew if it’s the Davido I know, that’s just a welcome/ intro. Weeks later he dropped “Coolest kids in Africa” featuring Nasty C (SA finest)*holds head* I listened to that song back to back for the whole day. Davido was doing trap music in african way, Afro trap I guess. Like he doesn’t even let you dilute what he just did previously and he hits you with another. Enjoying the buzz of coolest kids in Africa I got hit by “How Long” featuring Tinashe , I can’t explain it but this song did everything and shut people who had doubt up. Davido is doing deep Rnb with crazy high notes! Apparently Taraji P. Henson felt the heat and needed to come up on Instagram to appreciate him. I call him the Nigerian sound chameleon or rather simply put, he knows what the people want and how or when to give them.

Finally! We got hit by “IF” hmmmmm! Any artist who can take a break as long as davido’s and come back to own the industry with a bang Like “IF” is a king. Comebacks have failed big Nigerian artists a lot but he pulled it off and retained his spot. If “IF”(you see what I did there? ) is a human, he’ll probably be tired of appearing on the chats and making figures off digital sales. It just recently got remixed by R Kelly himself, the R in Rnb did a cover of Davido’s song, Only D’banj enjoyed that privilege with Pitbull and Estelle doing covers and even videos. Well.. IF is the dominating big thing. I’m just waiting for the guy to take me unexpected again as he’s already mastered the craft of doing so.
On a concluding note, I’m just an observer from a critical point of view who eventually got glued to his art and my major focus was how his music has gone through a lot of reformation and always stay appealing to the audience, he also does live performance now, aside his multiple controversies within or outside the industry and he still stayed afloat regardless. Secondly about resting the weight of his success to his family’s money alone, I’ll avoid mentioning names but many silver spoon artist have came through the industry and dropped or still struggling to get the A-list space. Back in 2012-13 forbes released a list of Nigerian richest artists which he missed out on and was ridiculed for expecting his family’s money to get him a spot. Last week he made the list in Africa regardless. Work Work Work I say.

Thank you for reading…. Catch me on IG & twitter @Mohworldent

Peace out!