Profiling

29/08/2025

THIS ONE IS PERSONAL: TIWA SAVAGE TRADES HER CROWN FOR CATHARSIS

After five years away from the album format, Tiwa Savage returns not with a festival-ready gbedu but with a diary set to music. This One Is Personal strips her down to her most vulnerable self — her heartbreak, her scars, her confessions, her lust, her shame. It’s not the “Queen of Afrobeats” coronation project some fans might have wanted; it’s something riskier: an album that feels written in the margins of her private life.

The opening track, “I’m Done,” is Tiwa’s line in the sand. Over a stripped piano-led R&B arrangement, she sings of betrayal and exhaustion, of finding men only to be let down. The rawness is striking — and the reference to her ex-husband/manager’s infidelity looms large.

That intimacy deepens in “Angel Dust,” minimal and percussive, where she slips into lustful demand: “gimme all I want… handle my bum with suspension.” It’s a startling contrast — grief turning into hedonistic hunger. By “You4Me,” the palette shifts to Afrobeats warmth, her gratitude and desire rolling over percussive bounce: “I wrap like bandages on you.”

Skepta steps in on “On The Low,” offering the first real male reciprocation of the album’s emotions. His presence feels less like a feature grab and more like a narrative decision — the A&R stitches it seamlessly into Tiwa’s trajectory. From there, “Holding It Down” edges into alt-rock textures, doubling down on toxic but mutual obsession.

The record’s most daring moment comes with “10%.” Over jazzy saxophone and bassline, Tiwa replays the events surrounding her infamous s*x scandal: “Phone on 10%, that’s when he sent the text / Left my session for s*x…” It’s surreal — confessional Afrobeats meshed with jazz. No one else in the genre is making something this bold.

From “Twisted” to “Scared of Love,” the record dips into repetition. The lust-love themes begin to blur, and while the melodies are strong, the emotional surprise weakens. Still, tracks like “Pray No More” and the taves-assisted “Addicted” bring sonic diversity, with jazz inflections and solemn Afrobeats underpinning her yearnings.

The album’s interlude, “This One Is Personal,” is a raw confrontation — Tiwa’s voice cutting through sharp rock instrumentation: “I made you what you are… is it so bad that I loved you more than I ever loved me?” It feels like the album’s thesis — the story is not glamorous, but it’s hers.

The closing stretch leans heavily on guitars, from the Caribbean-inflected “Will I Run Again?” to the log-bent “For One Night.” “You’re Not the First (You’re Just the Worst)” circles back to the stripped heartbreak of the opener, before “Change” brings it all home in a juju-rock hybrid with James Fauntleroy. She ends demanding transformation, but the question lingers: transformation into what?

For the hedonistic Afrobeats crowd, This One Is Personal will feel too stark, too un-danceable, too diary-like. But for those willing to sit with Tiwa in her vulnerability, it’s her bravest album yet — a confrontation of scandal, heartbreak, lust, and lingering questions. It doesn’t resolve her chaos, but it shares it without shame. This one, truly, is personal.

Ratings: 7/10

29/08/2025

TO BE A MAN: KIZZ DANIEL’S LONGEST STORYLINE FINDS ITS CLIMAX

Kizz Daniel has always been tagged the Afrobeats crooner who sings about love endlessly. But listen closer and another story emerges: a thread of songs where he doesn’t just romanticize women, but interrogates them—especially their irresponsibility, parasitic tendencies, and emotional manipulations. Few Afrobeats artists have been bold enough to sing men’s general plight in toxic relationships with the same consistency. “To Be A Man” is not a break from this tradition; it is the climax.

The arc began on New Era (2016), with Kudi. The song was soulful and sorrowful—lamenting a love lost on February 27. Kizz Daniel “crashed out” on that track, opening a path that he would revisit with greater sharpness over the years. By 2018, he had teamed up with Davido for One Ticket. It was more confrontational, calling out women’s flippant threats and emotional manipulation. Lines like “If you break my heart today, me I go sharpally replace” turned into a cultural refrain, giving voice to men who were tired of the games.

Then came 2019’s F**k You, a raw burst of fury that inspired the most covers in Afrobeats history. Almost the entire industry lined up to confess their experiences with betrayal and infidelity, cementing the song as the most cathartic moment in Nigerian pop. Still on King of Love (2020), Boys Are Bad opened with chaos: “If you leave girl I will swear for you / Cause all the money I don spend on you.” Here, the financial burden of love and resentment over sunk costs became the hook.

After F**k You, Kizz Daniel released Pak n Go in 2019, which sharpened his critique of entitled women. Built on humour and catchy repetition, the song essentially told men to leave demanding partners:

“If you buy am Toyota, she say she want Honda / Biko, pak ‘n’ go.”

“If you buy am isi’ewu, and she say you no buy shawarma, pak ‘n’ go.”

It became a kind of manual for men who felt financially drained and unappreciated. With satire and playful pidgin proverbs, Kizz Daniel delivered a serious warning: stop overstretching yourself for someone who will never be satisfied.

In 2021, Barnabas brought Pour Me Water. For the first time, the lament extended beyond women into his own fragility: “Girl, if you’re done with me, baby biko just set me free … you dey call me your boyfriend, but why I still dey pay for the s*x every night?” A rare admission of helplessness, self-destruction, and intoxication in the face of manipulation.

By 2023, on Maverick, Kizz Daniel revisited the same terrain with E’better. Here, he mixed humour with frustration, sketching a modern parable about pressures in love and material expectations:

“Na fine face you get you no get manners.”

“E better make I single again.”

The song played out like a conversation between reality and fantasy: he admits to spending his “last card” on a woman, but also reminds her that looks and luxury without substance are worthless. E’better wasn’t just a warning, it was almost resignation—the recognition that sometimes being single is the better choice.

By 2024’s TZA EP, the arc had evolved into outright rejection. On Busy To Be Bae, Kizz Daniel wasn’t just complaining anymore—he was checking out. He framed relationships as burdensome jobs, with no time for love, calling himself a “bad boy 2-4.” And now, To Be A Man heightens the arc by flipping the narrative. No longer just criticising women’s demands, he offers them an invitation: if you think it’s easy, be a man too. The song paints the reality of endless work, material demands, and emotional neglect:

“I work hard 16 hours in a day / No time off, no holiday … A quality time or Gucci bag, which one you want?”

“If e easy to be a man, take my shoes and go crazy.”

It is exhaustion. The man is mentally stretched, burdened by societal expectations, alcohol (“I dey drink ogogoro”) as a coping mechanism, and a partner who doesn’t understand. This isn’t new. Since Sofa (2016), he has sung about “alcohol and cigarettes” as companions. In 2021’s Addicted, he admitted dependence on smoking. By 2022, he teased an entire project titled Alcohol & Ci******es that never came. In 2024, on Marhaba, he was still confessing: “Just a little bit of alcohol, a little bit of cigarette / I’m already singin’ bird, I’m already continental.” Now in 2025, To Be A Man returns to the bottle, as ogogoro becomes his coping balm.

The most fascinating thing about this arc is how Kizz Daniel cloaks deep frustrations in catchy melodies. Each of these songs—no matter how bitter or accusatory—has turned into a hit with high replay value. It’s almost ironic: he sings of chaos, heartbreak, and self-destruction, yet delivers them as breezy anthems that soundtrack parties.

To Be A Man is not just a song—it is the latest chapter of Kizz Daniel’s longest story, one he has been telling since 2016. It is the arc of a man who has loved, lost, raged, sworn, rejected, and numbed himself, all while soundtracking a continent’s dance floors. If Afrobeats is often accused of avoiding depth, Kizz Daniel’s catalogue proves otherwise. Beneath the melody, there is always a man insisting that love is war, and men are casualties too.

And Kizz Daniel? He is Afrobeats’ most consistent chronicler of men’s suffering in love, documenting every stage—from heartbreak (Kudi), to confrontation (One Ticket), to betrayal (F**k You), to entitlement (Pak n Go), to resentment (Boys Are Bad), to emotional collapse (Pour Me Water), to outright rejection (Busy to Be Bae), and finally, to existential fatigue (To Be A Man).

27/08/2025

BOY SPYCE AND THE TYRANNY OF TWITTER NG

Boy Spyce’s latest snippet, Totali, dropped on August 25, 2025, and Twitter NG responded predictably: with merciless mockery. Since 2023, when he openly denounced artists who pay influencers for validation, this has been the template. What unfolds is rarely casual critique—it is a ritualized dismantling of talent, carried out by those who wield collective online power as both judge and executioner. Comment sections became battlefields: some likened his music to a JAMB candidate’s work, others dissected every bar with clinical precision, their mockery bordering on performance art.

Yet Boy Spyce’s approach has evolved. Where he once argued, blocked, or retaliated, he now embraces silence. That silence is not surrender; it is deliberate, a subtle act of defiance against a culture that thrives on spectacle. His absence from the fray magnifies the absurdity of the attacks and forces observers to confront a paradox: the very same platform that nurtured his rise now seeks to define the limits of his worth. Defenders exist—a small, vocal minority reminding the public that art can transcend the rabid appetites of online mobs. In this context, Totali is no longer just a song; it is a mirror held up to a culture of performative critique, influencer entitlement, and the collective hunger for spectacle.

Boy Spyce’s trajectory is riddled with irony. He rose to prominence through viral song covers, propelled by social media—the very platform whose dynamics he now critiques. In rejecting influencer validation, he insists that talent alone should be enough to sell an artist, yet he remains subject to the same social machinery that made him visible. His stance reveals a tension between authenticity and virality, a central dilemma for modern African musicians navigating a globalized, algorithm-driven music ecosystem.

Musically, Boy Spyce faces another challenge: monotony. Beyond the scorn of Twitter, his releases often fall into repetitive templates that saturate contemporary Afrobeats—echoing the styles of Khaid, Berri Tiga, Boypee, and a host of peers. His rigidity in production and melodic patterns risks eroding distinctiveness, a vulnerability that could undermine his insistence on artistic independence. For a musician staking a claim as a talent-driven anomaly, the need for evolution is critical; predictability is a luxury he cannot afford.

The broader ecosystem complicates matters further. Influencers, accustomed to wielding cultural authority, often underestimate the resilience of the artists they critique. History offers a cautionary tale: Burna Boy, who felt overlooked by the Headies in 2013, responded not with public pleading but with strategic withdrawal and eventual global domination. The lesson is stark: in a world where social media can amplify both praise and derision, neglect—or disdain—can catalyze transformation.

Consider the potential scenario: if Boy Spyce produces a track with the global resonance of Calm Down, Love Nwantiti, or Essence, the online mockery could swiftly invert, turning detractors into witnesses of his ascent. Social media, which thrives on immediacy and collective outrage, also magnifies comebacks, making each viral hit a potential instrument of cultural correction. In this light, the question is no longer whether Boy Spyce will succeed—it is whether the very voices mocking him can withstand the triumph of the underestimated.

Boy Spyce’s narrative also speaks to a deeper cultural tension in Nigerian music and Afrobeats at large: the uneasy interplay between authenticity, validation, and virality. Artists are caught between producing music that resonates with personal integrity and creating content engineered to satisfy algorithmic appetites and influencer whims. Boy Spyce’s defiance—his insistence on talent as the sole currency—challenges not just his detractors but the structural norms of music promotion itself. In refusing to bend, he poses a question to the industry: can an artist thrive without performing for applause, or has social media forever rewritten the rules of legitimacy?

Ultimately, Totali is emblematic of a broader moment in Afrobeats and global music culture. It is a confrontation with the politics of taste, the consequences of defiance, and the limits of collective judgment. Boy Spyce’s silence, his musical consistency, and the irony of his social media ascent all converge to tell a story about power—who wields it, who resents it, and who survives it. In the theater of online critique, the final act remains unwritten. Yet one truth seems clear: in a landscape where talent, resilience, and strategy collide, he who laughs last may indeed laugh the loudest.

25/08/2025

LAGOS IN AFROBEATS: THE CITY THAT BECAME A CHORUS

Lagos has never been silent. The city hums, roars, and hisses—sometimes all at once. It is a place where traffic becomes percussion, where street hawkers lace their chants with melody, and where the sea carries whispers into the night air. Long before Afrobeats was tagged a global export, Lagos had already been composing its own chaotic symphony. To live here is to be immersed in rhythm, unwillingly or otherwise; the city does not give you the option of muting it. Every bus stop, every backstreet, every market square pulses like a drumline rehearsing for eternity.

Yet Lagos is not merely the backdrop to Afrobeats—it is the co-writer of its script. The music borrows its urgency from the gridlock, its boastfulness from the billboards, its melancholia from the cramped tenements, and its joy from the yellow buses that ferry millions each day. When Afrobeats was christened around 2010, Lagos was already encoded in its DNA: the rebellion, the audacity, the refusal to stay quiet. Today, as Afrobeats travels from London clubs to New York arenas, the echo of Ojuelegba, Surulere and Festac remains audible in every hook and chant.

To call Lagos the capital of Afrobeats is not geography—it is testimony. The city has not only nurtured the genre’s pioneers, it has staged its battles and recorded its triumphs. From the Island lounges to the Mainland ghettos, Lagos is both stage and audience, muse and market. It demands visibility, and in return, it offers inspiration. What Afrobeats has become to the world—an anthem of selfhood, resilience, and possibility—Lagos had already been singing for decades, in traffic jams, in nightclubs, and in the restless dreams of its youth. Hence, Lagos does not merely appear in Afrobeats—it structures it, shaping the sound’s ambition, language, and reach amongst several other realities.

1. LAGOS AS GRIND, CHAOS AND WISDOM

Lagos is some type of initiation. Olamide’s I Love Lagos reads like a city anthem, praising both mainland and island, borrowing legitimacy from former Governor Ambode and painting Lagos as a place so advanced visitors mistake it for Europe. Yet behind the veneer of beauty, the city demands sharpness. In Eko, Kizz Daniel insists Lagos “teaches the fool wisdom,” name-dropping Mushin Oloosa as a shorthand for street schooling. Zlatan, in Lagos Anthem, refutes the complaint that “money no dey Lagos,” declaring the city’s riches obvious to those who grind.

Brymo, ever the street bard, turns the grind into story. 1 Pound is not just a love song but a walking documentary of Yaba’s texture — bus conductors fighting over ₦250, sachet water sellers hustling, an alabaru carrying heavy loads for pounded yam. It is Lagos reduced to the most granular human exchanges, wisdom coded in survival. Seyi Vibez’s Lagos mourns friends lost to violence, neighbors richer than kings who remain inaccessible, and an Abobi swallowed by double wahala. To live in Lagos is to carry scars, yet also to inherit wisdom. Even Zlatan and Tekno’s Agege video, under a bridge with bare-chested dancers zanku-ing around a toppled car, suggests Lagos chaos as spectacle — Ojuelegba where discipline is administered with fists, where disorder is rule.

2. LAGOS AS THE HUB OF HEDONISM

But Lagos is also where ambition explodes into indulgence. Maleek Berry’s Eko Miami fantasizes about Lagos-to-Miami parties — a transatlantic bridge of holiday abandon. Olamide’s Turn Up invokes the popular slang “jẹjẹ l’omo Eko n lo” — Lagosians move with peace, but always to a soundtrack of nightclubs and dance floors. Banky W’s Lagos Party canonized this spirit earlier: Lagos as the city where the best parties are guaranteed.

On the island, the girls become symbols of Lagos hedonism. Lekki by M.I, Falz, Ajebutter 22, and Odunsi sketches the currency of Lagos nightlife — Lekki women, mainland men, expectations negotiated under neon lights. Mayorkun crowns himself The Mayor of Lagos, then doubles down with Of Lagos, a viral house music anthem dropped mid-lockdown that positioned him as a nightlife incarnate. Hedonism here is both aspiration and governance — Lagos is a club, and only those who shine can rule it.

3. LAGOS AS A MUSE OF LONGING AND NOSTALGIA

For others, Lagos is romance, a muse dressed in memory. Brymo begs Eko not to let him go, a lover who might abandon him. Asa’s Eyo is pure nostalgia — a Paris-based singer dreaming of taxis waiting somewhere, children running, the laughter of an Eyo festival she hopes remains unchanged. Kizz Daniel borrows the Eyo chant for his own homage in 2025, as Oritse Femi had before him, pulling Lagos’ masquerade tradition into Afropop’s present.

Teni sings Lagos as beauty — Amala in Sh*tta, Oshodi as refuge for her lover on the song Case. Ayra Starr’s Lagos Love Story sketches a city where affection finds its coordinates. Even Show Dem Camp, on No Love in Lagos, romanticize by negation: narrating how every promise of Lagos romance dissolves in betrayal, DMs, and club smoke. Nostalgia, here, is both sweetness and warning.

4. LAGOS AS A LANDSCAPE OF CONTRADICTIONS

If one theme defines Lagos in song, it is antithesis. Wizkid’s Ojuelegba is both struggles and testimonies — his mother’s intercessions, his early recording days at Modus studio, and the neighborhood’s infamy as a place where hustle defines you. Runtown’s If E Happen for Lagos distills the contradictions into lyrics: “If you no know big man, you never know person.” Lagos is party, yet also failed ambitions, widening inequality, and an endless search for answers.

Double Wahala, Oritse Femi’s anthem, exemplifies this paradox. He boasts of global reach — Moscow to Malaysia — yet still rooted in Ikeja, Bariga, Surulere and Gbagada. Contradiction is embedded: Lagos makes you, Lagos breaks you. Reekado Banks’ Ozumba Mbadiwe and Burna Boy’s 20.10.20 turn this into protest memorial, etching into history, Lekki Tollgate as both Lagos wealth (a road in Lekki) and Lagos wound (the EndSARS realities).

5. LAGOS AS THE CRADLE OF AFROBEATS MODERNITY

At its core, Lagos is where Afrobeats invents itself. Wizkid globalized this identity in Made in Lagos, less a thematic album about the city than a branding device that exported Lagos as sonic passport. Mr Eazi’s Accra to Lagos and Lagos to London reinforced the same — Lagos as hinge between local and global. Niniola stretches the line further with Lagos to Jozi, inscribing South African house into the Lagos rhythm.

The city has birthed titles as declarations: Olamide’s Lagos Nawa!, Zlatan’s Lagos Anthem, Mayorkun’s Mayor of Lagos. Even Adekunle Gold’s Omo Eko crowns Lagos as identity, a birthright tied to struggle in Ikotun and Agege. The streets themselves become legend: Alajo Somolu by Brymo memorializes a thrift collector who never wrote records, yet embodied Lagos’ trust economy. Melodi’s Yaba Left borrows from Lagos psychiatry slang; Blaqbonez’ Back in Uni situates heartbreak in Lekki’s apartments; General Pype remembers Obalende as hellish on Victorious Man, KCee sees this same slum as a meeting point. Every neighborhood sings its own bar.

Therefore, to speak of Afrobeats without Lagos is to leave the story half–told. The genre’s global journey may be mapped across continents, but its center of gravity remains tethered to this restless city. Every sold–out arena abroad still echoes back to Ojuelegba, to Agege, to Lekki nights where the beat first found its footing. Lagos insists on being remembered, even when the music appears to have transcended geography.

The city, however, is not just a historical marker; it continues to reinvent itself alongside the sound. Each neighborhood produces new cadences, underground scenes seed future anthems, and the city’s chaos sharpens its musicians into storytellers who can carry local truths to global stages. Lagos changes, Afrobeats changes—but never apart from one another.

And so Lagos becomes more than a backdrop; it is a chorus—repeated, unignorable, central. It is the city that insists on singing itself into every rhythm, every verse, every stage. As Afrobeats expands into an international language of joy and defiance, Lagos will always be audible in its accent: loud, unrepentant, and unforgettable.

21/08/2025

SIR KINGSLEY’S AND CONTROVERSIAL’S MUFASA — A SELF-MYTHOLOGIZING ARC

With Mufasa expanding his discography, Sir Kingsley veers into self-definition with Controversial Success in tow. The Ghana-based Nigerian rapper has been curating a catalogue that steadily frames his life as myth — first as phoenix (Rise of the Phoenix), then as hedonist (S.W.A), everyman (On God), and dreamer (Like Burna Boy with The Villain). With Mufasa, he steps into his boldest archetype yet: the lion king, a figure of survival, resilience, and authority.

The collaboration with Controversial elevates the record beyond personal coronation. Controversial not only takes the hook but also provides the track’s emotional core with a verse that laments the weight of being an only child: “My leg bin dey for fire / I can’t deny, I tire.” His lamentation sharpens the song, grounding Kingsley’s leonine imagery in the lived realities of young Africans for whom success is not merely desired but demanded. This duality — Kingsley’s myth-making and Controversial’s confession — gives Mufasa its emotional architecture.

Kingsley himself raps with composure, embodying the lion’s calm authority rather than frantic hunger. His delivery is patient and deliberate, reflecting an artist who no longer feels the need to prove his strength through aggression. The production, sparse yet Afrocentric, provides a steady canvas where both voices can resonate clearly. Instead of rushing listeners to the dance floor, the beat creates space for reflection, compelling attention to what is being said.

What makes Mufasa significant is what it declares in Kingsley’s evolving narrative. By invoking the lion king, he situates himself within Nigerian mainstream music tradition of self-mythology — Burna Boy as African Giant, Olamide as Baddo, Wizkid as the Biggest Bird— yet he adds a new dimension by allowing another voice to complicate the story. The record becomes less about one man’s self-ascension and more about a generational outcry for recognition and survival.

In essence, Mufasa is Kingsley’s coronation in waiting. He may not yet hold the crown in the industry’s eyes, but the act of placing it on his own head, of roaring with conviction while making room for another’s pain, marks him as an artist whose myth is still unfolding. The lion king is not simply a metaphor for dominance here — it is a metaphor for endurance, for bearing the scars of struggle, and for still daring to call oneself sovereign.

12/08/2025

TWO DECADES OF CHAOS IN AFROBEATS: TERRY G, REMA, BLAQBONEZ & OTHERS

The narrative of Nigerian music is often told through the lens of rhythms, melodies, and the infectious dance moves that have conquered global stages. Yet beneath this surface lies a more volatile, less neatly packaged current — one defined by disruption, unpredictability, and a deliberate courtin...

11/07/2025

Rema Breaks The Silence On His Most Cryptic Album—HEIS

Exactly one year ago today, HEIS arrived — enigmatic, symbolic, and unsettling. Not just a Rema album, but a self-portrait in code. A cryptic dispatch from the future-facing mind of an artist who never hid his sense of purpose, only the reasons behind it. We danced. We guessed. Some of us even theorized. But now, one year later, Rema breaks the fourth wall — offering what he calls an “Author’s Note.” The mask shifts. The curtains draw. And beneath the music lies something older, deeper, more prophetic than we assumed.

The Dragon Awakens

“I was born in a Dragon year.”
In Chinese astrology, the Dragon is fire incarnate — mythic, divine, unrelenting. 2024, a Dragon year, thus held symbolic gravity. For Rema, HEIS wasn’t just an album; it was a spiritual convergence. The subtle rage we first glimpsed on “Bounce” — now explained — was not a mood or trend but a coded clue. On its cover, a dragon. The first public symbol of a brewing inferno within. HEIS had to happen in 2024. It was cosmically timed. It was not promotion — it was prophecy.

The Death Of Innocence

Between the Ravage era and Rave & Roses Ultra, Rema littered his visuals with iconography. The teddy bear — a recurring totem — showed up mutilated, burned, impaled, abandoned in graveyards. The roses? Set ablaze. No PR interviews dissected this, but now, Rema confirms: it was all intentional. A symbolic purge of innocence. Youth set on fire. It was never aesthetics for aesthetics’ sake. The burning toys were metaphors. He was shedding his skin — preparing for ego death.

Ravage, The Brain, And The Dead Horseman

Few fans paused to zoom in on the Ravage cover art. Even fewer noticed the glowing pineal gland — a reference to the “third eye” or seat of awakening. Fused into this was the silhouette of a horse-mounted co**se, tethered by a strand of hair to the brain. It was obscure, even grotesque — but it meant something: the death of the old self, the rise of the diviner. These are not the metaphors of a pop star. These are the signs of a spiritualist, a mythmaker, a child of Edo with one foot in the matrix and the other in the shrine.

The Woman Warrior And The O2 Stage

When Rema made his 20k-capacity O2 Arena debut, he didn’t just perform — he performed a ritual. He came as Queen Idia. He rode in on a horse. The mask — adorned with real chakra stones — wasn’t for show. It was an energy vessel. And in retrospect, it was a reclamation.

The bronze head of Queen Idia, one of Nigeria’s most looted artifacts, resides in London museums — not far from where Rema stood that night. But instead of pleading for return, he brought her back himself. Through performance. Through power.

But the aftermath? “I passed on too much rawness,” he says now. “Y’all were not ready.” That show broke something open in him. It marked the peak of Rage as we knew it — and the beginning of HEIS.

The Return, The Key, The King

After five years away, he returned home. Not quietly, but in divine sequence. He sold out a stadium. He received blessings from the Oba of Benin. He left with a medal — a key.

This is where HEIS distills. This is what it’s for. Jesus had his “I Am.” Neo had his “The One.” Rema has HEIS — an album not named in English, but in Greek. Not for flair, but for meaning. It means “He is.” But more importantly, it means: He decides who he is. No award, no Western validation, no playlist mattered more than this return.

The Underground Sound, The Uncommercial Project

Rema told his label HEIS didn’t need fanfare. No CDs. No vinyl. No merch. It wasn’t a product. It was a relic. He kept it minimal, almost cryptic — something for those who knew. “Not for surface level supporters,” he said. No dopamine dealers. Just the story-bearers. The ones who showed up in all black, leather boots, carrying the rage like gospel. And this? This wasn’t arrogance. It was artistic discipline.

The Naruto Mask and The Great Misreading

HEIS cover art was inspired by Itachi from Naruto. That, too, was deliberate. Itachi — often misunderstood — committed acts seen as betrayal to protect the greater good. So did Rema, in his own way. His shift in sound. The smoking. The visual choices. The aesthetics. The silence. They weren’t betrayals. They were cover-ups — protective illusions hiding deep love and deeper sacrifice. You thought he fell off? You thought he switched up? You didn’t read the story right.

The Co-Producer, The Unspoken Emotions

Rema co-produced most of HEIS. And if you listened closely, you heard things words couldn’t hold. The sonic textures weren’t just beats — they were emotion, trapped and translated. That’s why he landed nominations in producer categories. He wasn’t chasing titles — he was trying to feel understood.

The Disciples And The Doubters

In his final reflection, Rema thanks the true Ravers — the ones who walked with him, dressed the part, carried the story. But he also names the doubters. “Thanks to the Peters, the Johns, the Thomases, and the Judas who betrayed the course.” It’s not bitterness. It’s acknowledgment. Every story needs them. The faithful and the faithless.

Conclusion: Rema, Remade

One year later, HEIS stands as one of the most symbol-laden, emotionally complex albums ever released by an African artist. And its author — who warned us from the beginning that he was the future — has finally completed a loop that began long before “Dumebi.” Rema is no longer a teenage prodigy. He is no longer a prince of hits. He is now, more than ever, what he has always said HE IS. And now, we understand.