Celebrities are no strangers to controversy and are constantly care.ssing the spotlight as much on screen as they do off it, that it is often expected that they have at least one major scandal or two over the course of their careers.
For the controversy-laden Davido, even his debut single, “Back When”, was not without much ado. With a billionaire father and the good things of life coupled with an Asika for a manager and a Naeto C guest verse to boot, it was quite contradictory and unbelievable that he’d be singing of times when he had been broke.
The comparisons with Wizkid were ominous, for even Olamide had been subjected to similar scrutiny as the EME act became the datum for auto-tuned hooks and repetitive lyrics. It is little wonder then that many have trumped up a silent rivalry between the two, claiming it is the reason why both performers are yet to record a joint together.
When he released his Omo Baba Olowo album, critics were quick to dismiss it as a half-baked collection of average club singles. At the album launch, the presence of Aliko Dangote brought again to the fore his family’s affluence and additional criticism. Like Naeto C again before him, the singer meandered his way through and has come to be a success not only because of his father’s cash, but besides it.
This is due to the boy’s industrious nature. On the song “Life”, Paedae, one half of Ghanaian hip life duo, R2Bees rapped: “I think life is like Davido and Wizkid/one from the ghetto, the other a rich kid/But they both running their games artistic.”
“The way Davido has been putting in work this year,” observed someone on Twitter the other day, “you’d think he came across the family will and didn’t find his name in it.”
A statement is credited to him as having said in December last year that he’d recorded a myriad of hits, waiting to go ballistic. January 2014 had barely walked through the door than they started dropping.
Statistically, there have been at least 10 joints up on music blogs that he has lent his vocals to, in this first quarter of the year alone, excluding his smash hit, Aye.
On the issue of who’s the better artiste between Davido and Wizkid, the jury’s still out but the former’s records are intimidating. Wizkid may have been in the industry long before his contemporary, but until 2013, he had only toured Africa and the UK. Davido on the other hand, has been a constant performer in several parts of Europe since he burst onto the scene and was even reportedly arrested once in Prague. As hits go, not one of Wizkid songs – which almost always turn out to be a hit – has been as big as “Dami Duro” or “Skelewu”; the Youtube stats, the number of parody videos, the Hulkshare downloads and the fans in other countries do not lie. Simply put, while Wizkid makes hits, Davido drops monster hits. Unlike Star Boy, the younger Adeleke is also a producer. He also repeats lyrics far less often, unlike Star Boy.
He split with his former manager, Asa Asika when the latter began to bend the basic rule of music management: never outshine your act. He’s also picked an efficient PR team that continues to weather the storm with him and his HKN label mates.
More importantly, he’s graduated from being the One Week, One Trouble kid who couldn’t walk through the pottery class without breaking something to a modern-day Perseus gifted by the gods; his career taking flight like Pegasus. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of young David Adeleke.
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