It’s no doubt Shatta Wale is artiste of the year
2014 at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards
scheduled for tomorrow. I bet he is not
sleeping today. Shatta Wale’s popularity keeps
soaring. The guardian newspaper compiled top
5 new songs from around the world and Shatta
Wale made the list. This is how the website
reported it. All hail the king of Ghana
dancehall. His song “Wine Your Waist” with
Davido was his song that made the list. This is
how Guardian reported it.
This collaboration came out of nowhere.
No announcements; no pre-release hype;
no press release or even an official
artwork. Instead, two days ago this
massive collaborative effort between one
of Ghana’s fastest-rising artists Shatta
Wale and Nigerian pop star Davido just
appeared – and it turns out it is one of
the best new “afrobeats” songs of 2014.
I write “afrobeats” in inverted commas
because although Wine Ya Waist is more
of a dancehall record than anything else
– and while the Shatta Wale himself is a
Ghanaian dancehall artist – any music
coming out of West Africa onto the
world stage will be referred to as
“afrobeats”, unfortunately.
I must admit, I’ve tried to not pay
attention to Shatta Wale but his name
and his music have been virtually
inescapable around afrobeats circles for
the past six months. The video for his
breakthrough hit Dancehall King has
nearly one million hits on YouTube, and
his latest hit Everybody Likes My Tin is
one of the biggest afrobeats songs in the
UK right now.
And what can we say about Davido that
hasn’t already been said? Ever since he
burst onto the Nigerian music scene
with the Naeto C assisted Back When in
2011, he has remained one of the
biggest stars in the country. On the
verge of releasing his highly anticipated
sophomore album, everything the Lagos
native has put out has been pure gold
from last year’s Gobe and Skelewu to his
latest monster track Aye.
Individually, Shatta Wale and Davido are
hit-making superstars, but together they
have taken things to another level. I
don’t know how this collaboration came
about, but I’m guessing this was a one-
take session (the two were photographed
in a studio just over two weeks before
this song found its way online ). We all
accept that Shatta Wale is the “African
Dancehall King” but Davido matches his
Ghanaian counterpart bar for bar, lyric
for lyric and flow for flow – on his own
turf. The outcome is overwhelmingly one
of the best new afrobeats record of
2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N87dSFUnFME&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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