There was Melo Melo, arguably Olamide’s only successful slow tempo love song. Lagos Boys, lean on verbiage, had a memorable but nonsensical hook. All these chart-busters made up his fifth LP album, Eyan Mayweather, a 21 track album with no featured act, released November 2015. In April 2015, Olamide had released the long-anticipated duet album with his eastern Nigerian counterpart, Phyno; 2 Kings. 2 Kings comprised of 10 or so tracks and enjoyed mixed reviews.
Like clockwork, every November since 2012, Olamide has graced our airwaves with his latest offerings. In 2012, it was his iconic Yahoo Boy No Laptop, a 21 track album which consolidated the promise of his debut Rapsodi, with First of all being its most commercially accomplished track. In 2013, he released Baddest Guy Ever Liveth, unarguably his magnum opus with an equal number of commercially and critically acclaimed songs. On that album, there were songs like the mellow Eleda mi, appreciated by both young and old folks; Anifowoshe, sampling KWAM1 and chronicling Olamide’s rough childhood; Yemi my lover, a not-so-subtle anti-love song referencing that popular Yoruba Nollywood film; and Durosoke, a ragtag of Yoruba rhythms, humour and contemporary scenarios.
2014 brought Street OT which gave us a one-time street anthem, Awon Goons mi and the controversial “misogynist” songs, Falila Ketan and Story for the Gods. Whilst the former song made bail, the Young John produced Story for the Gods garnered its fair share of flak on social media, instigating a serious conversation about consent in the context of sex.
In a career spanning more than five years, a lot has changed for Olamide and it’s not just in the change of his signature introduction. It used to be the wordy couplet “Hola baby, its Ola baby” but now the first and last names, Olamide Baddo, suffice. Besides leaving the stables of ID Cabasa after his first effort Rapsodi, to start up his own label named for his second album, fathering a son and keeping his family affairs out of public view, Olamide has played midwife for a good number of artistes under his YBNL collective.
Lil Kesh used to be a Unilag undergraduate with a hot single Lyrically, but now boasts of a string of successful singles and a not-so-successful first album, YAGI, released under the aegis of YBNL. Ditto for Adekunle Gold whose eponymous first album occupies a unique position in our contemporary cannon! Recently, a female vocalist Temmie Ovwasa was signed to YBNL, and launched a single, Jabole. There is Chinko Ekun, a Law Undergraduate, who is summarily Yoruba’s response to Mystikal still searching for his big breakthrough song. Olamide, like APC politicians will describe Lagos, is working. He wears a number of belts—rapper, mentor, label Boss and mostly recently, singer—and he wears them well.
Of course, that rapper has been missing for more than a year since his last album had him mostly singing. Some pundits opine that Eyan Mayweather almost failed because Olamide isn’t much of a singer and his depth as a Fuji crooner is questionable. Nevertheless, his singing persists. Recently, Skibii Mayana’s hottest single, Ah Skibii, was released and Olamide did about 16 bars of Fuji singing. Although Olamide’s recently released Sere and Owo blow enjoy some rap, they are not remarkable. The earlier Young John produced Konkobility is remarkable for its raunchy video.
So what exactly is going on, Olamide? Can we diagnose burn out because singing is surely easier than rapping? Or is it a case of sticking with what the popular demands? Unlike Olamide, Reminisce, a fellow local rapper, has released his fourth LP, a major triumph, which features Olamide on a song Telephone, fuji-singing. Phyno’s ghetto gospel Fada Fada would still have broken the back of charts without Olamide’s doodle part.
The danger of limelight and frolicking with popular music is that one may not be able to keep up. If contemporary pop music in Nigeria has a consistent figure, it will be Timaya who manages to always put out one song that is relevant after both critical and commercial analysis.
Truth be told, fifty percent of Olamide’s album songs hardly require a second listen and his huge popularity has been sustained by the game of numbers—the more the songs, the more the likelihood of garnering popularity. Now that he seems to have found the desired acclaim, he could be scaling down the product, perhaps to sustain quantity.
I might be wrong, but in about one year or so, Olamide has not made real music.
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