Tucked into Adedamola, Fireboy’s latest album, the YBNL singer pays homage to Afropop ace Wande Coal with the aptly titled Wande’s Bop, surfing on a beat that looks cross-bred from Ashimapeyin and The Kick from many years ago. It is the second time the former Mohits star is getting such a reference from an artist of the new generation this year—back in May, Ayra Starr’s Jazzy’s song, interpolating Wande’s You Bad, was as much a nod to the singer as much as it was to the label boss after whom it was named. All of this praise may appear the start of some calculated trend, but it necessitates a much-needed conversation about just how much of present day Nigerian music’s framework was laid by the Black Diamond.
Before these insertions in their songs, modern day artists referenced Wande’s influence even more strongly in interviews. Fireboy has spoken in glowing admiration of the singer— ‘‘The God of Afrobeats to me, this is my idol’’—while crediting him with being the origin of the distinct flair that he shares with acts like Ckay and Oxlade. Oxlade himself confirmed as much when Culture Custodian spoke to him recently, as he described Wande’s appearance on his just-released album, OFA as a dream come true: “I used to say if God lets me, every album I will drop will have Wande on it”
While these singers have gone on to play headline roles in Nigeria’s global takeover—each with a cross-continental hit in the last four years—it is significant to remember that Afropop, the vivacious genre of Nigerian music that powers parties from Lagos to London, was not always built to favor artists that lead with sonorous vocals. In the past, they leaned towards the fields of RnB, Afrosoul, Soul and even Hip-life, the materials with which 2baba crafted his much-recognised debut and sophomore albums, and Styl Plus poured their hearts into evergreen love songs.
Wande Coal initially looked to follow in that direction. His debut single, Ololufe, was firmly anchored to RnB, complete with impassioned bursts of falsetto ad-libs and tender lyricism that expressed the profound love Wande so badly wanted to share with his partner. It was an astute employment of his particular skill set, but it fed into conventional typecasting. In subsequent releases, Wande was determined to explore the range of his artistry. For Mo’Hits’ 2006 compilation album, Curriculum Vitae, he was the dark horse that emerged the album’s powerhouse, driving multiple songs with an exuberant groove that put his Pop credentials beyond doubt.
Wande did not have to undergo too many tries before he first perfected his sound. A lot of his most celebrated qualities were evident as early as his debut, Mushin 2 Mo-Hits; in the shrill, radiant intro to Kiss your hand, in the RnB-Pop tug of war that strings the Yoruba-flavored Taboo, in the party-ready vibe of You Bad and the unbothered smugness of Who Born The Maga. But the track that was most predictive of the future of Wande’s craft, and by extension Afropop, is the one that is most closely remembered with the album, the effervescent Bumper To Bumper.
Mushin 2 Mo’Hits is near-universally acknowledged as one of the finest debut albums in Nigerian history, and much touted, in less definitive terms, as a ‘Classic’; the polish with which he glistened his first body of work made it very much the finished product. Afropop has been chopped and changed since then, to the point where so much of it is unrecognizable compared to only ten years ago, but the parts that still mirror closely to the sonic parameters Wande set for himself on his debut. And if the album was the effort of a scientist securing a patent after a period of experimentation, what came next was the mass production of a perfected formula.
Post-Mo’Hits, Wande Coal has remained in and around the top echelon of Nigerian music, despite lacking the commercial dominance and international reach of his peers. His impact is more qualitative; difficult to measure but impossible to ignore. Through the years, Wande’s Coal hit-making prowess has hardly been in doubt, so while his sophomore album, Wanted was subpar, singles like Baby Hello, Iskaba, Rotate, The Kick have demonstrated over time his astute understanding of the Nigerian dance-loving market and his ability to cater for it, while other releases like So Mi So, and Again remind you that the soulful loverboy that created Ololufe so many years ago is very much intact. On yet other tracks like the whimsical trio of Come My Way, Gentility, and Music Messiah, where Wande Coal’s vocalese harmonies sit side by side with finished lyrics, and the latter themselves hardly profound, Wande shows, somewhat complacently, that he doesn’t even need to pull from his top shelf of lyricism to hold you spellbound.
For artists like Fireboy, Ayra Starr, and more, approaching the cusp of Nigerian music superstardom, Wande Coal presents a pathway and a case study. Not one of outsized fame and fortune, perhaps, especially that deserving of his talents, but one of mastery of the craft, influence, and longevity. It helps, too, that he just so happens to, from multiple accounts, be one of the nicest guys in the music space, and Wizkid affirmed this as far back in 2017, a statement that he backed up by referring to him as “the only person I respect in the African music industry.” And he may not have said it, but Wande Coal’s Mushin 2 Mo’Hits, that thrilling mix of flavor and bounce, was undoubtedly of some influence to Wizkid’s direction for Superstar three years later.
His seemingly unproblematic nature also means that in a music climate where alliances and hostilities form with equal ease at the top level, he maintains strong relationships, musical and otherwise, with all of the biggest guns in the industry—in fact, one of the few artists to have shared a song with all of the Big 3. However, not all fans hold him in such high regard. Two years ago, what began as an irreverent Twitter discourse over Wande Coal’s status in Nigerian music eventually necessitated the singer to step in to clarify: he was not aiming for a legendary status, but to always enjoy making music.
The album he named after this interaction, Legend Or No Legend, was not impactful enough to convincingly seal the debate, but even in its low-impact status, LNOL held bits of what makes Wande’s legacy so unequivocal; in the music, certainly, but also in the features—Wizkid and Fireboy, artists from two different eras that hold in common a reverence of an artist they hold in the highest regard. The evolution of music means there is now a nearly sport-like array of metrics by which musicians are measured, but perhaps none is as important as the simple ability to make truly excellent music and influence the next generation to do the same.
