Big Wiz

Wizkid’s music career has, to an uncannily precise degree, paralleled the trajectory of contemporary Nigerian music’s flight in a global context. It is a nicety often missed by even his most knowledgeable, ardent supporters: how a teenage Ayodeji Balogun emerged at the close of the 2000s, as Nigerian Pop made its nascent introductions to the United Kingdom under its newly-given name of Afrobeats, or how the culmination of Afrobeats’ cross-continental aspirations ten years later coincided with the crystallization of Wizkid’s own crossover efforts. Even now, nearly 15 years since his unforgettable debut year instantly lifted him to national stardom, Wizkid’s biggest wins continue to trace Nigerian music’s highest peaks. In October 2021, the Wizkid-Tems joint, ‘Essence’, became the first-ever African song to reach the top ten of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. A month later, Wizkid made history again, selling out the monumental O2 Arena in only two minutes, and a further two times the next day. And while his biggest steps in the last few years have seemingly been obscured—or at least matched—by Burna Boy, the 2021 Grammy award winner, it is this history, the decade that came before, that reveals Wizkid as Afrobeats’ strongest influence.