The Problem With Asake’s New Album, Lungu Boy
The boy did it again: on Friday, August 9th, Nigerian singer Asake released his new album, Lungu Boy—the third in two and a half years. As far as meteoric rises go, Asake is in a tiny class. The success and goodwill he has enjoyed during that time are unlikely to be replicated. Things don’t often happen as quickly and massively as this, yet Asake has experienced it. Alhamdulilah. His ascension from the lungu (Lagos street slang for the ‘hood, the equivalent of London’s “road”—not to be confused with the Lungu people from southern Africa) to a true international superstar is the stuff of dreams, and you can tell that even he sometimes doesn’t believe it.
Lungu Boy is Asake’s completion of a trilogy, coming after Mr. Money With the Vibe in 2022 and Work of Art in 2023. It seems as though Asake has cracked the code to create hits quickly and hypnotically. He hasn’t complained thus far; his label and foreign partners (YBNL and Empire) haven’t complained, and fans certainly haven’t complained… until now. The album may be only a day old, but opinions on it are as divided as the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. The loudest critique of Lungu Boy is that it’s not the Asake fans had grown used to with his highly infectious beats and pithy one-liners in Yoruba that are Olamide+Reminisce-esque on steroids. Instead, the album is a more tempered offering, with midtempo melodies that sound more like Big Wiz than the shakers-driven bops he became famous for. Most writers have declared that Lungu Boy doesn’t quite have the same potency of his first two albums, therefore it’s not quite a trifecta (more on that word later).
It’s not hard to see what is being referred to: Lungu Boy has a crossover meticulousness to it. Where previously he had been produced mainly by Magicsticks on previous projects, P-Prime and Sarz get the most airtime on this album. The result is different. And herein lies the problem: Asake might be suffering from his success and the extremely high bar he’d set by said success. My take is that that’s a good problem to have.
I have repeatedly suggested that Asake has the voice, mannerisms, and Lamba that make a proper Fuji artist. It felt like vindication when TikTok revealed a snippet of Fuji Vibe, a track he performed at various shows. It appeared to do well no matter what venue he was at—the UK or the US. His collaboration with American rapper Travis Scott samples Fuji legend Adewale Ayuba. But even I know that’s a long shot: Fuji demands a lot that a recording artist like Asake might not be willing to give at this stage of his, and it is sectional: Asake is a global star that must cross over. That’s a good problem to have.
One has also been around the music industry long enough to know that they want to enter the mainstream American market at some point in every successful artist’s career. Not to say that’s why Lungu Boy is sonically the way it is—it is reminiscent of Wizkid in 2017 as he tried to crack the American market—but even if so, what’s wrong with that? It may also be helpful to consider Asake’s obligation to Empire, the record company that facilitated this success we all have come to enjoy. A glance at the album’s features (Stormzy, LUDMILLA, Travis Scott, Central Cee, and Wizkid) suggests what they intend to achieve: global mainstream success. Good problem.
Please note that the above is a conjecture—perhaps an informed one, but conjecture nonetheless. This brings me to the third problem Asake has with Lungu Boy: he dared to be different. Sometimes, artists are inspired differently and create something different from their previous work. The things that influenced MMWTV and the Work of Art are not the things that have influenced Lungu Boy. To quote Shannon Sharpe, that isn’t no problem! It ought not to be.
But the admirable thing Asake has done on this album is that while the melody and sound may have shifted form, he hasn’t. His voice, flow, and sequence haven’t. Most importantly, his language hasn’t changed. In a world where it is more convenient to codeswitch and assume newly acquired dialect and vocabulary, Asake doesn’t hold back from making his Yoruba language the pièce de résistance of his artistry. When LUDMILLA’s fans in the favelas of Rio tune in, they will hear the Yoruba language. Same with Central Cee and his crowd. In the age of annotation and seamless discovery, global fans who research a little will learn more about Nigeria’s storied music history. Surely, that is a good thing, no?
If there’s a deficiency in the album, it’s in the dissonance between the title and content. Lungu Boy doesn’t exactly speak about the elements that form his “lunges,” nor does it expound on how the lungu has brought him to America, where the ladies want him. It’s like Jay Z making The Blueprint and naming it 4:44. The packaging must match the content. Asake does not do that here, and it’s obvious.
Asake has delivered an excellent product with Lungu Boy, even if it doesn’t have the instant adoration of the previous two. It doesn’t need to, and it doesn’t make it less laudable. Aha is the trifecta word; it means a run of three wins in this context. It would be naïve to imagine that this album will age badly. I’m calling it right now: Lungu Boy will earn a Grammy nomination. Yeah, I said it.
Finally, why do we need to appraise African music through Western ratings? Nobody cares if it’s a trifecta or not. Music is primarily for self-expression, and fans must grow with their faves. And it’s one of those Americanisms we must do away with, along with “Mount Rushmore of such and such.” My friend, if you don’t get out of here!
The Jide Taiwo is a media exec, storyteller, and culture consultant. Follow him on social media: @thejidetaiwo
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