The question we should be asking is not whether Asake is out of his mind for charging tickets from the range of $82-$285. Rather, we should be asking ourselves whether we are willing to pay that amount to go see Asake perform his hits.
There is not a single African party you will attend where Asake is not being played, if there is then you really should not be attending such a function. Asake has been trending since he dropped his debut EP “Olalade Asake.” The EP featured his hottest single “Sungba,” which resulted in a remix with Burna Boy.
Asake’s NYC ticket prices are definitely a bit more on the costly side for an artist who is pretty new to the industry.
Take for example Ckay; whom I would argue is currently a much bigger artist than Asake by streams. He has 15 Million Monthly Spotify Listeners compared to Asake’s 2.1 Million. Ckay’s “Love Nwantiti” hit went Platinum in the US in 2022; one of the biggest African songs ever in terms of streams. This song currently has 555 million streams on Spotify alone; I am not sure you can find any other African song with those numbers even from the likes of Wizkid, Burna Boy or Davido. Ckay currently has more than 547 million impressions on Tiktok compared to Asake’s 143.5 million. Taking all of these stats into account, Ckay’s ticket prices are as low as $24 and $44 with the highest selling for $171.
Wizkid, popularly known for his RIAA twice certified platinum record “Essence,” has ticket prices ranging from $65 — $361 for his upcoming performance in Edmonton, Canada. He is also one of the most expensive African artists to book with a whopping international performance fee of one million dollars. Rema, the hit maker of “Calm Down” which charted for nine weeks peaking at 119 of top global songs with 119 million streams on Spotify, charged NYC concert goers $58 — $387 for his two nights at Irving Plaza.
Asake will be performing at the Palladium Times Square which is a much larger venue than Ckay and Rema’s concert venue. Looking at the numbers, I would be inclined to argue that Ckay is underselling himself compared to Rema and Asake’s ticket prices. On the other hand, both Rema and Asake have way more hits than does Ckay. Out of the three artists, Rema has the highest average ticket price of $196.
When I first heard of Asake’s ticket prices, it was before he had released his debut album Mr. Money With The Vibe. During that time I went through Asake’s entire discography and I put together a list of about nine hit songs that averaged at around three minutes each. This means that Asake would really be performing for about half an hour.
Asake’s Nine Hits Pre-Album release:
Sungba (feat. Burna Boy) (3:30) Palazzo (3:06) Omo Ope (feat. Olamide) (2:46) Bandana (with Fireboy DML) (2:58) Peace Be Unto You (PBUY) (2:35) Terminator (2:36) Trabaye (2:51 Baba Gode (2:44) Mr. Money (feat. Zlatan & Peruzzi) (2:40)
His entire discography pre-debut album is twenty songs, and most fans were only checking for about less than half of all his released songs. Now let us assume that he were to perform his entire pre-album discography, with an average length of three minutes per song, concert goers would roughly get an hour long show. Having attended a few concerts myself, I have never seen a single artist perform their entire discography. Artists mostly stick to their hit records and then will add in a few songs from their earlier days, for the day one fans, and call it a night with their “Sungba.”
Before the album release I was asking myself if Asake’s 30 minutes to an hour long performance was worth my $82+ in this current economic condition that has me wondering whether I can afford to walk two blocks from my New York City apartment! The answer to that question probably would have been an unfortunate “no,” but then he released his debut album. I did what any true fan with any early start work day would do, I listened to the whole album from the minute I woke up and came back from work. Once I finished the first listen, I went on to listen to it again and again. I only listen to an album multiple times in one day if I really like it, otherwise it will never pop up in my Spotify history again.
“Mr. Money With The Vibe” had no skips because it was a true vibe. The project featured his most successful singles and some slow jams that one could only describe as spiritual therapy.
Asake and his team easily convinced me to pay that ridiculous ticket price solely from how much I loved this masterpiece.
The album was released a few days after his performance at the Headies Award Show. His album performed well on the charts, with three of his records being featured in the top three spots on Spotify’s charts Nigeria. Asake also had three of his album records on Apple Music charts’ top 100 global songs within a week of release. Moreover, this album release came a few weeks before his seven-city USA tour.
I think we can say that Asake and his team knew exactly what they were doing with those ticket prices and I cannot fault them for it because money is for chopping.
What sets Asake apart from the Ckay’s, Rema’s and even Omah Lay’s of Afrobeats is his inability to release a single bad song since his debut EP. He may have less overall streaming numbers compared to those other artists but his individual records have more replay value, with the exception of Rema who I believe has the best replay value of any of these four artists.
Asake sang, “Mowa l’owo Baba God (I am in God’s hands).” Therefore, I am compelled to believe that God truly does have Asake in his hands, and “Mr. Money‘’ has faith strong enough to convince us to buy those rubbish $100+ tickets.
Disclaimer: Some of the data mentioned above may change in real or over time. Ticket prices were only sourced from Vividseats and Ticketmaster; the prices are subject to change or no longer be available as folks buy their tickets and concerts take place.
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