By: Bobby Nishimwe
Fans of Nigerian artist, Davido, have waited three long years to hear another album and he heard our yearning and has more than delivered.
In November of 2022, Davido unfortunately lost his three year old son, Ifeanyi. Since then, Davido had kept a relatively low profile, understandably. He resurfaced back in public during his performance at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Closing ceremony.
At the end of March, Davido graced us with a new project called “Timeless,” which has already picked up steam on the charts and streaming platforms. Since it’s release, it was pronounced as the highest charting album by a Nigerian artist in Apple US music history (at #3). He was the most streamed Nigerian artist in a single day in Spotify history. Debuted at #37 on Billboard’s weekly 200 albums. Landed at #10 on the UK Official Albums chart, making it the 2nd highest charting Nigerian album in UK history.
So right away, Davido had a hit album on his hands and I have listened to it more times than one can count in order to give you a full breakdown of the tracks on this project.
Let me begin by sharing the thoughts that my friends had after listening to this album:
Alero: “The one word I would use to describe how the album made me feel is home!”
Amanda: “Timeless”
Jola: “Cleansing, because the album just felt very relaxed. Very calming, very good
vibes, good energy..I feel like I could listen to this album while driving, with my friends just having a good time on a nice Saturday morning.”
Jackie: “It was just like a smooth transition back into the limelight.”
Justice: “He used elements of afrobeats, amapiano, like all high life stuff. Like deep rooted African tunes. As opposed to everybody incorporating international stuff like dancehall, RnB into their albums. This was just straight, top to bottom all African sounds.”
I will start by pointing out the variety of things that Davido did right to make his fourth project one of the most successful albums in Nigerian history.
First, Davido had an aggressive and strategic promotional tour that included several media outlets and three continents. His first interview was on CNN with Larry Madowo. My suspicion is that he wanted to start with a news-heavy global platform that would be able to reach a much wider audience than the more niche hip-hop/RnB media outlets. It is also true that a lot of African households always have CNN on loop, so definitely a smart way to reach his primary target households.
From there he went on to perform on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, interview on Hot 97’s Ebro, Laura Stylez, and Rosenberg radio show. Across the pond, he recently appeared on Amazon Music’s +44 podcast with Sideman and Zeze Millz who are big media personalities within UK urban pop culture. He also did an interview with the Afrobeats Podcast, not to be confused with my own podcast, Afro Banta Beats.
Beyond these media appearances, Davido had or is scheduled to have three promotional live events in New York City, London, and Lagos. His NYC and London events corresponded with the release of his PUMA collection, which he used as an opportunity to have meet and greets with fans in selected stores.
These promotional tours were instrumental in creating an immense level of awareness to this project, both to those who are already fans of Davido and folks who may not be as familiar with the artist.
Another huge selling point for this album was its authentic and pure African sound. From the various African genres that came alive on this album to the majority African features that exemplified the power of ubunifu (creativity in Swahili), this project paid an homage to the artistry of the continent.
Davido came back and brought with him the vibes that I personally believe have been missing in a lot of the major afrobeats albums that we’ve gotten in the last three years. He was able to orchestrate a project that incorporated popular sounds from the early 2010s afrobeats era with highlife and the new fusion sounds that have taken over the African music scene post-pandemic.
When you listen to most of the afrobeats projects out now, they are all for the most part full of the Afro Piano sound or as I would term it, the Asake-effect. As much as we love this subgenre, we also continue to long for that Nigerian sound that moved us Africans to fall in love with Afrobeats in the first place. When trying to pin down the sound that I am talking about, I think of songs like ‘Aye,’ ‘Dami Duro,’ or ‘Skelewu’ which in a major part helped to define the Afrobeats era of the 2010s.
This is not to say that the album is also not following the Afro Piano trend, it certainly does do that as a lot of the tracks on this project have some amapiano elements. What sets this project apart from other current afrobeats albums is the nature to which Davido makes the piano tracks mesh into his unique sound. As much as I listen to these songs and start busting out some South African dance moves, Davido’s inflections when singing allows his Nigerian sound to take lead over the piano tracks instead of the other way around.
Now, Davido is not new to the Afro Piano sound. I would beg to argue that he was actually one of the pioneers within Nigeria of bringing the fusion of afrobeats and amapiano to the forefront. You can go as far back as 2014 with the collaboration he did with South African duo Mafikizolo on his “Tchelete” single. That is when we first started to see this experimentation of infusing Afrobeats with a South African sound, granted that specific track followed more of a Gqom flow; which is a subgenre of Kwaito as is Amapiano.
Davido understands that the most powerful tool of marketing that artists have today is social media. It’s not good enough to just post snippets of your new song on social platforms, but you must create content that is effective in reaching the right audience that you want to engage with your art. Understanding this, Davido used his track “unavailable” as the promotional record for this project by incorporating an easy to replicate amapiano dance challenge.
Obo also knows that the right influencers can help boost your project’s probability of going viral. Davido collaborated with the most relevant young talent within the Amapiano scene to help push this project to his target audience across socials; specifically tiktok and Instagram.
He enlisted Uncle Vinny to be a part of his music video for “unavailable.” I would describe Uncle Vinny as the electric vibe master of the South African Amapiano scene. When you need a guy to rev up a crowd, you call Vinny. His empowering wordsmith of call and answer will take a crowd from level two to a thousand in a second. He is the grand master of MCing culture in Piano grooves across South Africa, and he has gained a large following from across the continent and globe.
Aside from Uncle Vinny, Davido also included TxC, who are a South African female DJ Duo; known for their captivating dance moves that they incorporate in their sets. Featured on this song was Musa Keys, who is also South African and very well-known within the Piano scene.
When you see all of these personalities, who are arguably some of the biggest acts within the Amapiano scene, on a piano track you have to stop everything you are doing and partake in that record straight away. You don’t ask questions. You don’t wonder, why? You don’t wait for your friend to hit you up. You don’t wait to hear the song at the next African function. No! You just click play immediately and start singing, “I’m unavailable, Dem no dem see me. (Haibo!) I’m unavailable, Dem no dem see me.”
Most of the recent albums that we’ve seen from Nigerian artists have featured a wide range of western artists, even Davido’s previous albums were filled with a good amount of Western acts. Looking at just his last album “A Better Time,” he had at least seven artists from the U.S. This time around, Davido had mostly African artists featured on this project with the sole exception of Dexta Daps.
Overall this project featured one Jamaican artist, two South African, one Beninese and the rest being Nigerian. Now he didn’t just collaborate with big name artists, he also included ones that most of us have never heard. For example he featured Nigerian artists, Morravey and Logos Olori, listening to this project was the first time these names had appeared anywhere on my Spotify feed.
Morravey is as new to the industry as I would be if I released a song tomorrow. This feature with Davido is her first ever released song, as in God what have the rest of us done wrong. Imagine your first released single being on the album of one of the biggest African artists in the world. Listening to this track, you would think that Morravey has been doing this for a very long time. The tone of her voice on this song reflects a confident artist who came to take over and leave her mark on this project. I am sure that this is not the last we will be hearing of her.
The song she featured on is called, “In The Garden.” This is definitely one of those make you feel good records. You have a woman telling a guy that she is yearning for his physical touch and will change his status into being her man. The man in return is also ready to take that next step and commit to this fairytale-like romantic journey with this girl.
Logos Olori on the other hand already had released some songs before jumping on this project with Davido. His most recent track from 2022 called “Lale” is an Afro Piano track that was produced by none other than Asake’s famed producer, Magicsticks. Knowing me, I went and listened to his entire discography and I have to recommend this one record of his called “Jogobo.” Nonetheless, Logos is relatively an unknown artist who released his first single back in 2020, but has not really caught on like the likes of Rema or Ckay. I am guessing that this might change in a few months if he takes advantage of this opportunity.
The song he featured on is called, “Picasso.” When I listen to this track, I almost think that I am hearing Wizkid for a minute because of how similar Logos’ flow is to that smooth afro-jazz sound of Big Wiz.
One of my favorite lines on this track is when Davido said, “I’ve been listening to Sauti Sol, lately. What I’m feeling lately I don’t know, lady.” I love the Sauti Sol shoutout, who are my favorite African male band from Kenya. This line makes a lot of sense, because sometimes I will be listening to Sauti Sol and maaan I will just be like, guy at this rate and confusion done enter because they make really beautiful music that makes you start missing people you shouldn’t be missing.
Then Logos jumps in to sing, “So baby, draw me close like Picasso. Tell me say you got a man, we know. Baby girl, you know I got the figo. Make I sing and make you dance Awilo.” I am currently writing down that first line to use on a babe as future rizz, “draw me close like Picasso,'' going down in my notes app right this moment. The guy even says I don’t care if you got a man, baby let me tell you what I can make you do just by singing. Wow! Imagine singing to a girl for them to start dancing like those Congolese video vixen babes from the 90s in those Awilo Longomba music videos. God, to have not gifted me with the talent of singing is to have robbed me of proper joy.
Davido recognized true talent and went off instincts instead of the numbers game that is so focused on pairing artists with those who can easily run up their streaming stats. In other words the love for the craft is what should matter, and Davido chose to stand ten toes down on that belief with his approach to creating this project.
“Unavailable” Featuring Musa Keys: This is for sure the breakout song of the entire album. It is the one song that was determined to trend. The conqueror, the emperor, and the champion of the project. Most of you may know Musa Keys from the popular track “Selema Po Po” with Tanzanian artist Loui. This was as good of an amapiano feature as an Afrobeats artist could have, listening to this track automatically makes you want to stand up and attempt all of those impossible South African Tik Tok dance moves.
“BOP” Featuring Dexta Daps: I believe this is the first feature a major Jamaican artist has done on an Afro Piano track. A sound which I personally would like to see more off, the infusion of dancehall with amapiano. One of the things I loved about this feature is that Dexta stayed in his true element of delivering a romantic and melodic dancehall verse that encompassed similar vibes from songs like “Forever” or “Call Me If.”
Davido never misses with his Caribbean features, he knows how to do them well and they always work.
“Na Money” Featuring The Caveman & Angélique Kidjo: This song transports you right back to 70s Accra, Ghana with hot warm air forming wavelengths caused by the percussion heavy sounds of Highlife music. There are no two better features to have to encapsulate the melodies of highlife than Nigerian band, The Cavemen and the Beninnese Icon herself, Mama Angélique Kidjo.
My Nigerian roommate was the first person to introduce me to The Cavemen. I went to see them perform last year in Brooklyn and I was just at a loss at how well they incorporated hip-hop with Fujii, highlife and heavy percussion traditional Nigerian sounds into their music. Also, Lauryn Hill was at that show, to my unknowing at the time. So, it makes perfect sense to have this group be a part of this track.
Angélique Kidjo is as powerful of a music icon as Africa has had. She has won 5 grammys with 15 nominations. Auntie Kidjo is one of the most celebrated and well-known African artists of the past three decades. She sings to bring humanity back home to Africa. Her powerful voice can make even the most troubled of individuals accept calm with a pure sense of peace and tranquility. She is our mother, our auntie, our legend and our voice of various African generations. So, what better legend to have on this traditional african track than la reine (queen) herself, Angélique Kidjo.
This track follows a call and answer like format that depicts a conversation between a man who is ready to dash money on a woman he likes. I love this format because it reminds me of Taarab music (East African swahili music genre), where an integral aspect of the songs are sung in a manner that simulates a conversation between multiple parties. In a way this format takes normal everyday speech to incorporate a melodic and sweet element to it, as a way of dramatizing the impact that it leaves on the listener. Listening to this song makes me feel like I am home!
To describe this song as sweet is an understatement, it is quite frankly as delicious as a ripe mango picked off a tree in the garden of a house in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
“No Competition” Featuring Asake: I think that most people would have predicted that a Davido and Asake collaboration would have featured a contemporary Afro Piano track. To my shock, these two created a more contemporary Afrobeats track with a melody that one could expect to hear from the likes of Rema, Olamide, Ayra Starr and more.
This record was produced by a fairly unknown Nigerian producer named Rugged. Before this album, Rugged had produced Nigerian artist 1da Baton’s latest song called “Call Jehova.” Besides that, this producer hadn’t really produced for any other well known Nigerian artists, again showing as to how Davido was less concerned about working with famous names than just choosing the right talent for the project.
Davido gave the new and young African talent the space to shine on the world stage.
I know that I talked so much about the features, but I also just wanted to highlight some of the single tracks that I loved.
Starting with “Feel,” here we have a track that just makes you want to dial, well I guess we don’t dial anymore, rather Facetime that one babe that you have no business trying to call at those ungodly hours. As brother Bernard would say, you don’t want to sleep alone tonight. Maybe you are feeling lonely or you remember the whine you caught at the club and you just want to start talking sweet on the phone, well this is the song for those times of temptation. Honestly some of you should just play this song and leave it at that, no need to get yourself involved in a situationship you might regret later.
“E Pain Me,” well I mean this is very self-explanatory. Guy you are just sad that the babe has or is about to leave you. It is okay King or Queen, you can rise past that heartbreak. Sha, just go to an Amapiano function in Brooklyn and you will feel better. Davido is clearly expressing the pain of a man who is losing his girl and crying out to her not to leave him. To be honest with you, with the current state of the economy, you don’t need to be crying over a babe, it’s better you cry over your pockets. Girlfriend no fi pay for your bills, your pockets (hopefully) will.
“Precision” is an amazing song man. The premise of this song lies in the principle of having your stuff together while I also put my situation in order. In other words, once I have handled my business then I will go ahead and bring you along with me. There is no point in bringing someone in a state of confusion and wahala, as that is just wasting one's time and energy. He wants to make sure that he is in a healthy and stable state before involving a girl and he also is asking the same of the girl. It’s a cool and vibey song to dance to, but also just listen to with a drink (could be water too) in your hand sitting on a chair on top of a rooftop just staring at the sky.
I want to end the track reviews with “LCND” which stands for Legends Can Never Die. This is an extremely touching song that is all about appreciating life and celebrating those who have passed on. It is not lost on me that Davido lost his son just a few months ago, and so I can only imagine his frame of mind as he was recording this record.
The track was co-written by Yung Willis, Davido and Elhi. Yung Willis has written for some of the biggest names in the Nigerian music industry, from writing smash records like “Buga (Lo Lo Lo) for Kizz Daniel & Tekno, “Cold Outside'' for Timaya and BNXN fka Buju, and other artists such as Patoranking, Yemi Alade, Zlatan, Ycee and more. He also produced this song, showcasing Davido’s immense trust in Yung Willis to help deliver what I believe must've been quite an emotional song for him to perform.
From the beginning to the end of this project, you experience a wide range of emotions, from solitude, sadness, pain, joy and excitement. The title of the album is very fitting because Davido created a ‘Timeless’ work of art that is forward thinking in terms of incorporating both matured and newer sounds that inform an expectation for its “Timeless” standing in the future of African music.
Davido, thank you for sharing a part of you with us in this project that will stand the test of time.
And special shoutout to my friends, Alero Oyinlona, Jackie Manu, Jola Bankole, Amanda Nyang’oro and Justice Arthur-Masere jr for their contribution in sharing their views on this album.
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