REVIEW: How Olamide “Ikigai” EP Will Be Remembered

“Ikigai” by Nigerian ‘rapper’ Olamide will be remembered as another failed attempt at crashing into Afrobeats mainstream.

After “Unruly,” Olamide’s last album, failed, you would think he had learned a lesson to stick to rap, which brought him fame and respect from the onset, and leave Afrobeats to those who can do it.

Olamide is not Makaveli on his new EP, “Ikigai.” He merely borrowed the alias of a rap legend to do nothing close to what the legend would have done–rap.

When I saw the title “Makaveli” on the tracklist, I was charged up and my memory quickly went back to “Voice of the Street,” happy I would hear something hardcore like this again from Olamide years after diluting his own cornflakes with sand.

If you want to be a rapper, own it and be a Kendrick Lamar. If you want to be a Drake, just do it properly, like Drake. Olamide, from the begining stage of his career, showed strengths in making up nice melodies (in singing). But he ain’t just cut out for singing!

All the major awards of his career, and much of his recognition, came from one thing: his job as a rapper. Except for his loyal Nigerian fanbase who like to hear him sing (and who like anything he does), he is not a good singer in the books of music critics and in the unbiased minds of music listeners.

He can write chart-topping Afrobeats but he can’t sing chart-topping Afrobeats. He has penned songs for Afrobeats artists–for Tiwa Savage and for Asake–and they shook the charts and listeners. But he cannot make the same magic on his own.

If he should stay a songwriter and give his Afrobeats to artists and make rap songs instead, it would be best for him and for us, who respect his rap talent.

“Uptown Disco” is the only track with a reply value on the EP. And, I assume, we all know why.