How Wizkid’s essence paved the way for afrobeats in the United States.
Quality music is common in the Nigerian music industry, but there have been a few songs that have stood out over the years, here Mp3bullet buttresses how Wizkid’s essence paved the way for afrobeats in the United States.
“Afrobeats to the world” has been a popular saying among Nigerians for a long time, and with the high quality of songs coming out of the country every week, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Afrobeats became a global phenomenon.
Since the beginning of time, Nigerian songs have had a wild music reach beyond other countries.
However, D’banj’s Oliver Twist, which peaked at number 9 on the UK Singles Chart in 2012, went far beyond anyone’s expectations, as it was one of the biggest songs in the UK, which happens to be the world’s top two music industries at the time.
A thousand miles began for Afrobeats music at that very moment.
Wizkid, a Grammy Award winner, has been a force to be reckoned with in the push to expand Afrobeats’ reach and audience outside Africa.
He and a few other Nigerian artists have recorded hit tracks that have gone far beyond the continent.
Wizkid launched Nigeria’s most anticipated album “Made In Lagos” in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The record went through many creative processes for three years before finally seeing the light of day in October.
When the album was released, the quality of the tracks made it difficult for fans to choose a favourite.
One of the fan favourites is track 11 “Essence ft Tems,” a mid-tempo song in which Wizkid showcased his lyrical prowess and flaunted his melody abilities, while Tems delivered a catchy hook with her mesmerizing vocals.
They shared great chemistry, and you can feel the emotions in every line.
The renowned beatz & P2J produced track’s popularity expanded day by day, it went viral in South Africa, it spent weeks on their charts, and when the video was released 5 months later, it picked up speed and attracted even more attention, and it was the start of a magical moment.
The wave was strong in the UK before Essence caught the attention of the black population in the United States, and it lasted six weeks at the top of the UK Afrobeats charts.
The streams started growing quickly, according to Wizkid’s official Twitter fan page “Wizkid News,” with the song gaining its highest daily streams on Spotify and Apple Music every day.
However, the streams correspond to the number of interactions around the song across various social media platforms.
Essence became everyone’s favourite, it became everyone’s go-to music for Instagram stories, it began to receive “Song of Summer” shouts in the United States, American celebs began to jump on the bandwagon, and you could scarcely watch their Instagram stories without the song playing.
When the song is played at parties, concerts, and shows, you can see people’s faces light up as they sing along.
The song’s popularity has moved to other nations such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, France, and Canada.
Essence has received widespread acclaim from music fans around the world, something that has eluded Nigerian songs for decades, with acceptability previously limited to certain regions.
All previous Afrobeats songs that reached a mass audience in the United States received promotional support in some form or another, but Essence gained traction on its own before receiving the purposeful promotion.
Make no mistake, the song did not grow spontaneously to the point where it required only minor aid to climb the hill that stood in its way.
After debuting at number 19 on the Billboard Bubbling 100 without radio airplay, Essence realized it required a ladder to climb the hill that stood in the way of reaching the Billboard Hot 100.
However, it was later pushed to radio and eventually charted at number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100, with a 3 million radio audience and over 40 thousand units sold.
Meanwhile, a few Afrobeats songs have reached over 10 million radio listeners in the United States without appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and only one Afrobeats song has appeared on the Billboard Bubbling 100 chart.