Naija Skits
@naijaskits
1 year ago

Inside Davido’s Global Musical Empire

IT’s early April, and Davido, the 30-year-old musical superstar, is about as jet-set as you can get. The global Afrobeats sensation, whose music has been streamed more than 2 billion times, has just released his fourth studio album Timeless and is in the middle of a promotional odyssey, bouncing between Lagos, Johannesburg, New York and London to excite his increasingly international fanbase.

Just days after the album's release, Davido, who was born David Adedeji Adeleke, packs New York's famed Irving Plaza for a launch concert. The next night he performs a mash-up of hits on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, before hopping a plane to London to host press events for his label, Columbia Records, and a parade of kickoff parties. Soon, he's back in his hometown of Lagos to debut his new fashion collaboration with Puma, the $9.29 billion (2022 revenues) German sportswear giant.

avido, who broke onto the scene in 2011, has been pioneering—and profiting from—the trend. Davido’s management team predicts he’ll earn more than $20 million in 2023 from royalties, touring, merch sales and endorsements. (Not that he needs the money: His father is one of the most successful businessmen in Nigeria with interests in banking, energy, farming and real estate.)

In 2016 he signed with Sony's Columbia Records, becoming one of the few African musicians to join a major international label. Last year, with musicians Trinidad Cardona and Aisha, he created the song Hayya Hayya, the official anthem for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and performed at the global sport spectacle's closing ceremony.

His new album Timeless has already attracted critical praise and digital plays. Within the first ten days of its release, the album had been streamed over 133 million times (with 43 million streams in the US market alone) and hit #2 on Billboard's World Album chart.

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