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<\/p>\nAfrica-Press Nigeria<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, as COVID-19 restrictions lifted in Lagos, Nigeria, Davido retreated to the plush comforts of Los Angeles to continue work on a project that he had conceived at the beginning of the Lagos lockdown. One day, whilst on a studio run for the project and additional work on a proposed song for Hit-Boy\u2019s album, Davido took a bathroom break and ran into none other than American rap icon, Nas. The 27-year-old Nigerian pop star is half-laughing when he describes their meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am washing my hands, I look up and I see Nas, and I\u2019m like, what?\u201d he says. Nas, too, isn\u2019t sure if he has the right person, so he asked his bathroom accomplice if he was Davido; pausing slightly, Davido adds insouciantly, \u201cI answered, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a powerful indication of how far contemporary Nigerian pop has come over the last ten year that Davido, one of the genre\u2019s foremost avatars, is instantly recognised by one of the most celebrated rappers alive. For Davido, whose oldest brother used to drive him to school in Lagos while bumping Nas\u2019 music in the early 2000s, it felt especially significant. That day in L.A., Davido and Nas made music together and Davido\u2019s oldest brother was the first person he told about it.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t chalk up Davido\u2019s excitement to naivete, he\u2019s used to the finest luxuries of life. Born David Adedeji Adeleke in Atlanta, Georgia, before relocating to Nigeria, he attended the British International School in Lagos, and at 16, was sent to the Oakwood University in Alabama to study Business Management. In Alabama, he got introduced to music-making gear courtesy of a dorm mate, making beats and instrumentals that marked his entrance into the music scene. Sometimes later, seduced by the growing appeal of Nigerian pop music, Davido dropped out of school to pursue his passion. He went AWOL for a bit and upon turning up back in Lagos made a deal with his father to finish school at a university in Osun state, northwest of Lagos, if his musical aspirations were supported.<\/p>\n
Since then, his music career has blossomed, a series of singles released circa 2011\/2012 including \u201cBack When\u201d and \u201cDami Duro\u201d established him as a fixture on the scene, clearly becoming a part of a new generation of singers primed to capitalise on the success of progenitors like P\u2019Square, 2Face, and Wande Coal. Talking to Rawiya Kameir of The FADER in 2018, Davido remembers his life undergoing a change after \u201cDami Duro\u201d. \u201cEverything just happened,\u201d he told her. \u201cI was being booked in, like, Botswana, all over Africa in under six months.\u201d<\/p>\n
From being an African superstar, he has expanded his reach to the world side-by-side with the rise of afrobeats, the amalgam of sonic styles used to refer to popular music from West Africa. Along with Burna Boy, Wizkid, and Tiwa Savage, he is looked at as one of Africa\u2019s leading light musically and to close out the last decade, Davido released ‘A Good Time’ in November 2019, a record described by Pitchfork as \u201c buoyant\u201d and \u201cunsinkable.\u201d In another interview with British GQ, Davido explained that the album\u2019s motif was to show that \u201c it\u2019s a good time to be African.\u201d Smooth, groovy collaborations with stateside acts like Chris Brown, Popcaan, and Summer Walker prove that point.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSometimes you forget how you are being appreciated worldwide,\u201d Davido admits candidly over a Zoom call months after the Nas meeting. It is, of course, a portent into another story, one of how he and Nicki Minaj collaborated on a song at the height of lockdown. He\u2019d noticed that Nicki Minaj had followed him on Instagram and, after a night out in Nigeria\u2019s capital city Abuja, DMed her with a uniquely Davido message: \u201cYo, Nicki I have a hit for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was like, \u2018Definitely,\u2019\u201d Davido continues, laughing. \u201cI even thought she was going to tell me to hit her manager up or let the label work it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicki Minaj insisted that he send her the song directly, Davido says, and less than 48 hours later, her vocals were sent back. ‘Holy Ground’, the euphoric song they worked together on sees both artists work around their strengths to create a seamless sonic experience that has Nicki rapping and singing in tandem with Davido\u2019s gruffly yet toned emotiveness. That song will find a home on ‘A Better Time’, a quick-fire follow-up to ‘A Good Time’, Davido\u2019s sophomore that came out seven years after his debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really recorded (a lot) during the whole lockdown period,\u201d Davido admits. In sharp contrast to the extemporaneous recording style for ‘A Good Time’, he was in a settled zone to create this record. \u201cI would say I had more time to work on it because I wasn’t really doing shows, everywhere was closed. Unlike ‘A Good Time’ where everywhere was open. I was doing shows at the time, I was on the road. I was in America most of the time I was recording ‘A Good Time’, because I was busy handling stuff for my label so I had to record the album mostly like emailing my producers that were down here but ‘A Better Time’, I was on the ground, in Nigeria, with nothing to do but record. We put a lot of concentration on the project.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result of the extended time working on the album is a project that is deeply steeped in African tunes \u2013 with appearances from Sauti Sol, Tiwa Savage, and Mayorkun \u2013 while embracing afrobeats\u2019 international profile on collaborations with acts like Lil Baby, Young Thug, and, again, Chris Brown. Davido, however, makes it a point to explain that none of this was planned. \u201cWhen I record a project, I don’t plan it. I\u2019m not like this album is going to be more American-influenced or otherwise. I just record and if the best songs that I recorded are with artists overseas then so be it, if it is the other way round, then so be it. There are no real criteria, it is just how I recorded it and how the songs were chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Africa-Press Nigeria Earlier this year, as COVID-19 restrictions lifted in Lagos, Nigeria, Davido retreated to the plush comforts of Los Angeles to continue work on a project that he had conceived at the beginning of the Lagos lockdown. One day, whilst on a studio run for the project and additional work on a proposed song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":32294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,17],"tags":[113,1563],"class_list":["post-32290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-culture-and-art","tag-culture-of-nigeria","tag-davido"],"yoast_head":"\n