In 2016, when Davido signed Mayorkun to his imprint Davido Music Worldwide, the youngster released his debut single, “Eleko” and an accompanying video. To everyone’s surprise, the newbie’s video got over 700K views, in less than a week. Think of how many weeks it’s taking Rema to reach that mark now and you’ll get the idea. It was completely incredible!
Then the ‘allegations’ started flying in, Davido is buying views. For many, without buying views or getting it ‘Sponsored’ on YouTube, there is absolutely no way a first-timer could achieve such feat. At least, not in 2016. But the Davido buying views of a thing looks and sounds unfounded. It’s probably just ‘bad-belle’.
Just in case you don’t know what we’re talking about here, David is one of the biggest African pop stars, at the time (and now) so pulling his weight behind anybody would mean ‘blowing’ up or inadvertently going viral. Or so we thought?
Until now!!!
Larry Gaaga has been active in the music industry, for a while, doing some amazing collaborations with A-List artists, around here. About a year ago, he hooked up with Davido for what some Davido fans think is one of Davido’s most meaningful songs ever, “Doe”. Of course, it was a hit. I downloaded it, had it on my phone, played it for a while. And that’s it. But I’m human, I lie. Numbers don’t.
3.6m views on the official video in a year? Not bad, right. Yeah. But he didn’t even sing on “Eleko” and we all know what happened. Now here is he doing something with Larry and, pfff, just three million? Larry’s promotional budget didn’t include buying views or sponsoring it on YouTube to get more views.
But Larry Gaaga is very influential. So influential when Wizkid was on vacation, he did the song “Low” with him and released it. Somehow, it became a hit too. Even managed to dwarf Wizkid’s leaked single “Jah Bless Me.” Still I lie and numbers don’t. In a month, “Low” got 3.6m views. Exactly the same as 1-year-old “Doe”, and in a couple days after surpassed it, and as at time of writing it sits at 3.8m views. So, what changed?
Did Larry increase his promotional budget for Wizkid? Or it’s just the Wizkid influence? Or since “Low” is a very good song, maybe that’s it. People like good music? Is that it? Or we’re finally back at the subjective reality that Wizkid is a bigger artiste than Davido?
Wizkid isn’t a son of a rich businessman, so he definitely didn’t know anything about huge promo budgets until a record label came his way. He’s self-made, so to say. And, over the years the singer has built his accolades, fan-base and achievements, organically. He may not have as much Instagram followers as Davido. “Come Closer” may still be at 76M while “Fall” is 129M. But something about him seems organic.
We really can’t be sure half of the people who watched Davido’s video had to because it kept coming up as “Sponsored”. While both of them are on break, well let’s say, for now, with “Low”, Wizkid is winning!