Authored by Bobby Nishimwe
As I stated in my previous writings, the past two years of Wizkid's artistic output left me with a great deal of disillusionment. This disillusionment made me believe that maybe Wizkid had lost the appetite for continued creative growth.
On Friday, Wizkid changed that perception when he dropped “Morayo,” a beautiful album dedicated to his late mother. This project is one of the most thought-provoking works of art that Wizkid has released in a while. He leans into narrative storytelling and monologues while balancing both vocal and instrumental leads to create a beautiful symphony of musical artistry.
Wizkid took us back to his roots by formulating a soundboard that encapsulates the essence of his musical tradition and identity. At the core of this album was heritage. Whereas the last album, “More Love, Less Ego” was geared towards Western audiences, Morayo reassured Wizkid’s Nigerian and African fans that he has not forgotten about the place that made him who he is today.
This approach has already proven fruitful as the album is on track to potentially become one of the highest-charting African albums of all time. Morayo earned the biggest (16.27 million) streaming debut for an album by an African artist in Spotify history, debuted at #7 on the Apple Music Albums chart worldwide and has been charting in 95 countries on Apple Music.
A mixture of Fuji, Amapiano, and smooth Afro-fusion elements defines this 16-track project’s sound. Though the tempo fluctuates throughout the project, the producers engineered great transitional intros and outros that help to maintain a sense of continuity and balance.
The album opens up with “Troubled Mind,” a Fuji-forward track that combines traditional Yoruba sounds with Wizkid’s signature Afro-fusion flow (a mixture of smooth reggae/dancehall and Afrobeats).
In this project, we see a wide variety of features from Asake, Brent Faiyaz, Tiakola, Jazmine Sullivan, and Anaïs Cardot.
Asake features on the record “Bad Girl” where these two artists’ flows easily blend into one another. The two artists have worked together in the past and are currently nominated for a Grammy award for their “MMS” record which is on Asake’s Lungu Boy album.
Wizkid released his record “Piece of My Heart” featuring Brent Faiyaz as a single before dropping the album. This record together with his single “Kese (Dance)” helped to drive hype for Morayo.
Jazmine Sullivan’s feature on “Bad For You” opened the record with an incredible verse, which she continued to repeat throughout the song acting as the ‘chorus.’ The entire track felt like a passionate conversation taking place between two lovers who have become fully intoxicated by a relationship that bears no positive outcome.
This album also had some notable non-feature tracks from “A Million Blessings,” to “Lose” and the outro track titled “Pray.”
The opening of “A Million Blessings” starts with a series of string instruments, which are drawn out into the record to give a symphonic sound combined with dramatized piano keys and a strong bass rhythm that welcomes Wizkid’s opening verse. We continue to hear the string instruments in the background, creating a sense of an Afro-fusion ballroom rhythm infused with an uptempo snare drum beat.
In his track “Lose,” Wizkid goes into deep introspection on how he copes with pain and anxiety. He concludes that “amazing grace” is how he can deal with the things that trouble his life. This record is another callout to the theme he started on from the top of the album with the “Troubled Mind” track where Wizkid talked about “the pain for my mind,” and “one shot for mama, yeah, I miss you.”
Morayo in so many ways is a project bred out of pain, self-reflection, and finding comfort in that which we are the most familiar with while looking to a higher power for the strength to carry us through it all.
Wizkid closes the album with “Pray,” a track that is all about reclaiming his place in the culture by highlighting how the prayers of his mother got him to this level of success. In this record, Wizkid is proclaiming himself as one of one, and that there is nobody else like him. So, while he uses this song to showcase gratefulness it is also an opportunity to be unabashedly braggadocios in his accomplishments.
Overall, you sense that Wizkid finds peace and validation in reflecting on the blessing that was his mother.
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