5 Times Olamide Missed His Chance To Impress The International Market

5 Times Olamide Missed His Chance To Impress
The International Market

There is no (real) battle for supremacy as
far as music from the street goes. Olamide is
the overlord and he reigns supreme while
other indigenous rappers tussle for leftover
titles. Olamide occupies the influential
positions that there is in ‘street music’ – he is
the ‘voice of the street’, ‘the King of street’
and ‘baddest (perhaps greatest) guy ever
liveth.’

Apparently, the King of the street is content
with the territory he commands. On several
occasions, he has maintained that he won’t
go out of his way to appeal to the
international community – indeed, but what
if international success was freely given and
not needing strategic planning or extra
effort, would Olamide still say no to awoof?
Olamide is taking a conservative approach to
this international market penetration and it
is understandable considering that it seems
better to have an egg today than a hen
tomorrow. Olamide has a firm grip on the
local market but some observers believe he is
not just ‘street material,’ they say he is
Hollywood material and they would rather bet
on him to ‘blow’ on the international scene
than on Barcelona in an El-Classico match.

MMG rapper, Wale is one of such persons and
he seems to see an international worthiness in
Olamide. Thus he has given the YBNL boss
opportunities to make a claim for
international exposure not even once nor
twice, but multiple times even, yet the YBNL
boss chose to stay ‘street’.
Here is a list of 5 times Olamide had the
opportunity but failed to impress the
international community:

1) Fine Girl (Wale ft. Olamide & Davido):
Featuring on this song is Olamide’s best
chance at international exposure yet, the
song made Wale’s Shine album and of course,
the album sold majorly in the US market, the
headquarter of global music and sadly, the
best Olamide could produce was ‘fine girl to
nidi nla’ – really?
I mean don’t expect him to do anything other
than indigenous rap but make it believable
and appealing to the new audience. Say
something aptly creative, like in the context
of Fine Girl, say ‘that the girl’s eyes are the
only Christmas light that deserve to be seen’
tell them, ‘she has a walk that can make an
atheist believe in God long enough to say
Goddamn’.
Say something creative like that in Yoruba
and foreigners would want to cross borders to
get more of Olamide’s indigenous rap.

2) Allelu (Wale ft. Don Jazzy, Olamide &
Reekado Banks): On this song, Wale featured
some of the best Nigerian music stars in
various capacities; arguably our best
indigenous rapper, one of our best Afro-Pop
stars and an elite producer.
Understandably, Don Jazzy played around
because he has nothing to prove as a singer,
Reekado delivered on his promise but again,
Badoo was singing nursery rhymes. No one
outside Nigeria would take a nursery-rhyme
singing yoruba rapper seriously, especially
when there are so many up and coming
rappers doing the true gospel of Hip-hop.

3) Make Us Proud (Olamide ft. Wale) :
Featuring a rapper like Wale gives the song
some sort of international exposure, whether
it is admitted or not. M ake Us Proud must
have initially caught the attention of music
lovers outside Africa but the attention would
likely not have turned to love because
Olamide was less than impressive on the song
again.

4) Toka Remix (BeCa x AKA x Olamide):
Olamide has fallen my hands on more than
one occasion when it comes to taking a bigger
bite of the apple but he knows how to redeem
himself. However, his recent Coke Studio
performance is unforgivable.
Olamide performed alongside two beautiful
east African singers and South African
artiste, AKA. Sadly, Olamide appeared on
stage sounding not different from Dammy
Krane, his singing was below average and
disappointingly, AKA committed the same sin.
At the point of Olamide’s introduction, the
performance started to look like a talent
show audition and Olamide seemed like a
contestant that is destined for a NO! This was
an Africa-wide platform; West Africa, East
Africa and the South were watching and still
Olamide failed to sell anything worth asking
for more.

5) Summer Body (Olamide ft. Davido): On
Summer Body, Olamide did the unusual,
although mildly, he seems to have a new
audience in mind when he was recording the
song.
He went for an English worded hook on that
song, save for the pamuregeji part and
perhaps he thought the song would put him on
the international map, especially when he
had an internationally soaring artiste as a
guest on the track and of course, he was
singing about a sexy lady with the ‘summer
body’ but who around here knows what
summer body girls look like?
Maybe those people on the outside of Africa
and perhaps those were his target audience
on Summer Body. Around here, a girl is either
hot or not. But with the ‘packaging’ did the
song hit the new market well? NO!
Olamide’s near absence on the field of
international march doesn’t seem to be
resulting from lack of interest but a function
of unsuccessful attempts and maybe due to
his conservatism. However, his local content
which he is best at creating, are beginning to
find their way to the audience abroad.
For instance, US producer Swizz Beats made
a good show grooving to Wo! and maybe it’s a
sign that Olamide would break into the
international market but honestly, that seems
beyond belief.

Written by Oluwatobi Ibironke