When Stans Go Too Far: How Wizkid FC (Almost) Derailed “Morayo”

Let’s get to it; Morayo is back on platforms, and Wizkid is still the G.O.A.T. Man; what a wild week it was; there was a near inferno in the streets—on the Wizkid FC WhatsApp groups, at least—from the moment the album came down from Apple Music, literally less than a day later. Conspiracy theories went through the roof. Was it technical? A sinister plot by Apple to dim the Afrobeats glow? Or, as rival fan armies like 30 BG insisted, was Wizkid FC caught red-handed stream-farming the hell out of the album?

Stream farming is gaming the streaming numbers with bots, VPNs, and multiple devices to push an artist’s metrics into the stratosphere. The idea? Make your favourite appear to be winning the streaming wars, even if it is akin to paying yourself to win Monopoly. It’s a move straight out of the Stan playbook, but the backlash it triggers is always messy.

This was not supposed to go down. Wizkid had just dropped a career milestone. Morayo had the stans camping on the refresh button, ready to anoint it “Album of the Year” before anyone could even hit track four. Then poof! Off Apple Music. What ensued was a case study in stan culture at its most unhinged, where love for an artist becomes a competitive blood sport.

Stans: The Double-Edged Sword of Modern Music

Here’s the thing about stans: they’re a dream, and a headache rolled into one. On the one hand, they keep your name trending on Twitter at 3 a.m. in countries you’ve never toured. They will continuously stream your album as if their lives depended on it, which, let’s face it, they do for some. Wizkid FC isn’t a fanbase—it’s a movement, a cultural export as powerful as the artist himself. They helped seal his global superstar status, brought Afrobeats to the fore, and he became the first name on every respectable festival bill.

But there’s a flip side to all that love. Stan culture thrives on competition, and it’s not just friendly banter. It’s full-on trench warfare. Who’s streaming harder? Whose fave has more awards? Who’s got the most Spotify monthly listeners? And when one stan base senses a threat, it’s scorched earth. If you’re 30 BG, your side-eyeing Wizkid FC is like, “How are these numbers climbing so fast? Is this even legal?”

The Streaming Scandals: From Morayo to Drake vs. Kendrick

Let’s not pretend Wizkid’s saga is happening in a vacuum. The music industry is drowning in questions about fake streams, manipulated charts, and inflated egos. Just look at Drake. This man is suing Universal Music Group and Spotify, claiming they boosted Kendrick Lamar’s streams to fuel their rivalry. Imagine that you are Drake and believe that Spotify supports Kendrick in this matter as if it were a Game of Thrones episode. Whether true or not, the allegation underscores how shady things have gotten. And fans? They’re deep in the fray. Some will make five accounts on Spotify to push a damn album to #1. In that process, they’re messing with the entire fabric of the music economy. Streams are not some vanity metrics that represent awards and chart positions or even how much your label invests in your next project. Fake streams don’t just inflate egos; they distort the entire game.

The Cost of Stan Obsession

But here is where it gets dicey: when fans take it too far, the artist catches the heat. Wizkid did not acknowledge the controversy throughout this drama, but silence did not stop the optics. When Morayo disappeared, even without evidence, the whispers began: “Did Wizkid know? Did he greenlight this?” It doesn’t matter that he had nothing to do with it; the damage was already done.

Meanwhile, fan bases from the opposing team had a field day. 30 BG couldn’t help but run this into a dunk contest. “Your king has fallen!” they exclaimed in tweets that will be in someone’s doctoral dissertation on digital fan wars later. All this chaos over what? It’s an album that everyone knows would have succeeded without the shortcuts.

The psychological toll on artists is another story entirely. Imagine having millions of people who love you, but their love feels like a ticking time bomb. If you miss a beat, release an album that falls short, or fail to “win” the chart race, they will abruptly contact you in your direct messages, stating, “Bro, you’re embarrassing us.” No wonder more artists are taking long breaks or quitting social media altogether.

The Way Forward: Repairing the System and the Fans

Let’s face it: stream farming is here to stay until the platforms get their acts together. Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube must lock down the algorithms. Regular audits. Transparent data. Perhaps even punitive measures against fake streams. If your album magically jumps up 10 million streams in 12 hours, the system should flag it, investigate it, and level the playing field.

Artists, too, must draw the line with their fans. Yes, Wizkid FC is one of the reasons he’s at the top, but it’s okay to say, “Yo, I appreciate the love, but let’s keep it clean.” Transparency builds trust, which keeps fans loyal for the long haul.

And fans? Chill. Supporting your fave doesn’t mean sabotaging the industry. There are better ways to channel that energy. Create fan art, organise listening parties, or fundraise for charity in their name. If you are out here generating fake streams, you are doing so for your benefit, not that of the artist.

Stan Culture: Love It, Hate It, But Respect It

At its best, Stan’s culture is proof that music has the power to connect. It’s a global movement—a digital shrine to the artists who make life a little brighter. But when it veers into obsession, it risks becoming the very thing it’s supposed to fight against a barrier between the artist and the world.

Thankfully, Morayo is back, and the Wizkid era continues. The controversy will pass, but the lessons shouldn’t. If you love your artist, love them enough to let their music speak for itself. It’s not the streams that make them legends—it’s the songs, and as we can agree, Wiz is a legend already.

The Jide Taiwo is a writer and media practitioner. His second book E File Fun Burna is available here.