August is looking like a good month for Nigerian music. 2019 has definitely been a good year.
Wizkid’s latest feature, Brown Skin Girl, has spent 2 weeks at Number 1 on Billboard World Digital Song Sales Chart. Davido is at Number 3 with Blow My Mind, and Burna Boy made two new entries on the chart this week with the song African Giant at Number 22 and Pull Up at Number 24.
There are several billboard charts and each billboard chart has a specific method for ranking albums or songs. The World Digital Song Sales Chart, specifically, lists non-Western songs with the highest number of digital sales. Think of digital sales as official downloads. The more digital copies a song sells, the higher it ranks on this chart. At the moment, Brown Skin Girl has been the highest grossing digital song on the chart for the past two weeks. It’s a big deal.
To create Brown Skin Girl, Wizkid teamed up with Beyonce as a guest artist on her latest studio album, The Lion King: The Gift. The album which also features Yemi Alade, Tekno, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage and Mr. Eazi. The track was an immediate hit after the release of the album both home and abroad. Fans have been flooding social media for weeks with undying praise for Beyonce’s genius and Wizkid’s ability to turn any sound into audio gold. The stunning success of Brown Skin Girl gives a new and very interesting perspective to the reality of how versatile Nigerian music is, and how far the Nigerian sound can really go. Wizkid continues to give us undeniable reasons for why he is one of the biggest and hottest talents in Africa.
Meanwhile, Davido’s very recent summer single Blow My Mind is another one of his unquestionable hits. It’s fun and cheeky, with a beat you can’t fight and a chorus you have to sing along to as soon as you’ve heard it. The song features that American R&B bad boy we all love to love, Chris Brown, and his intoxicating vocals make the song even more of a banger.
Last but certainly not least, Burna Boy’s success on the chart comes as no surprise. The incredible work that was put into the production and content of the tracks on his African Giant album speaks volumes. His latest work goes as far as educating Nigerians with surprising facts on pre-colonial history and the true origins of Nigeria.
It’s been an interesting year for all three artists. Burna Boy won the Best International Act at the BET Awards, appeared on the wildly popular American show Jimmy Kimmel Live, and performed at the Coachella Music Festival. Prolific artists under Davido’s record label DMW like Dremo, Mayorkun, and Perruzzi won’t stop setting music channels on fire, and Wizkid hasn’t dropped the ball with any of the many songs he’s featured on this year. It’s starting to look like we might all need shade and fans for the special heat we’re bound to get in 2020 as these three young princes go head to head.
Reference
Billboard
Featured image source: Septin 911