Davido: "The African Narrative Is Changing"
When it came to filming the music video for their new single, Awuke, Nigerian singer-songwriter Davido was dead-set on flying YG Marley out to Lagos.
“We could've shot the video anywhere in the world but I wanted to him to experience Africa,” Davido told me over Zoom on a recent autumn evening. “And he had the time of his life – you could see the joy on his face”.
It marked YG Marley's first time in Africa, despite his dad's family's strong ties to the continent. Not to mention the fact that his mother, Lauryn Hill, has long been a crusader for the African diaspora.
“I wanted to show him the same thing I want to show everyone else: almost everything they have in the Western world, they have at home," Davido tells me. “Because I spent time in schools in the West growing up, I know that people outside of Africa aren't really educated in what it's really like.”
The Afrobeats artist – who was made an Officer of the Order of Nigeria last year, one of the highest honours that the government has to bestow – is glad that the work that has gone into enlightening the West about life in his motherland, of which he has contributed, is making a difference.
“The African narrative is changing. Back in the day, when I was in school in America, I was automatically labelled as a scammer because I'm Nigerian. Now, when they ask where you're from and you tell them Nigeria, they talk about the music, they talk about the food, they talk about the fashion.”
It is fashion that brought Davido to the UK on the day of our call: he was in London to promote his second collaborative collection with Puma.
“This time, we really wanted to make it urban,” he says of the drop. “The first one was really sporty, but for this one, I really wanted to weave in my style – how I dress today and the way I used to style Puma growing up. It's been amazing to see people wearing my designs to the club and to functions.”
He's particularly excited to discuss his sold-out, denim-look riff on Puma's CA Pro sneaker as it fulfils a childhood dream of having shoes that bear his name.
“Those dreams came from being raised by hip-hop and watching one of my favourite artists, 50 Cent, have his own shoes.”
Davido's upcoming album – a record led by the YG Marley link-up – will have flavours of the genre (amongst many others), inspired by artists like 50 and Ja Rule from America, where he was born.
His parents – Adedeji Adeleke, a business magnate and the late Dr Vero Adeleke, a singer and university lecturer – may have moved back to Lagos from Atlanta, Georgia when Davido was very young, but the U.S. certainly left a lasting imprint. So much so, he returned to America in his teens to study at Oakwood University in Alabama. It was here he started making beats.
He feels “blessed” that he's just as enthusiastic about making music today as he was back then. “I don't think that excitement of making music will ever leave me since every day is a learning process.”
Producing has been a passion point for him lately, and he reveals that he's been “involved in the production of his new project in a big way.”
He's feeling confident about the result.
“I think it's going to be my best one yet.”
If the infectious Awuke is any indication, he might be right.
“Awuke” by Davido and YG Marley is out now, and so is the Davido x Puma autumn/winter '24 collection.
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