If Davido’s intention when curating his debut album, ‘Omo Baba Olowo: The Genesis,’ was to assemble a collection of undeniable hit records to command listeners’ attention, this mindset hasn’t really changed 14 years later.
In his fifth album ‘5ive,’ Davido shows the appreciation of hit records that have ensured he maintained his status at the summit of Nigerian music.
Since making an emphatic claim to the throne in his 2012 single ‘All of You,’ his ambition has been backed by wins that have increased his defiance of the naysayers who insist that his success is procured by his silver spoon rather than earned.
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On his triumphant fourth album ‘Timeless,’ Davido sends a message to his detractors on ‘Over Dem,’ where, like in ‘All of You,’ he boldly asserts his supremacy.
If these targets intensified in the past two years, so did Davido’s defiance as he spends part of his fifth album reminding his foes of his irreplaceable position in the game.
For Davido, defiance manifests in doubling down on his most defining traits, and that includes the carefully curated flamboyant rollout that preceded the album.
For the music, it’s flaunting his capacity to make easy hits that capture the pulse of his primary listeners.
‘5ive’ reflects Davido’s decided effort to connect with the markets Afrobeats has made tangible gains in the past decade, and like a confident ambassador, this Nigerian identity gives the album its core.
Fourteen years into his career with almost all of it at the very top, Davido isn’t about to start pushing the sonic boundaries of Afrobeats now, especially not when he never quite fancied such endeavours.
Even when he tried with his ambitious 2015 EP ‘Son of Mercy,’ the poor return filled him with enough paranoia to stay clear of such risk-taking.
Little wonder Davido stuck closely to the Amapiano fusion that has delivered big moments for him and Afrobeats in the last 5 years.
Alhanislam‘s opening poetry declared that Davido is active, and the 5-time Grammy nominee didn’t take long to show what it meant.
He deployed Amapiano log drums for the opening song of triumph ‘Anything’ where he celebrates the resilience that has maintained his place at the top.
He clung closely to these familiar log drums, and while they might be tired, Davido trusted in his capacity to inject vibrancy into them through his bubbling delivery and sticky lyrics.
While Davido delivered a big moment with the use of log drums with the tingling ‘Holy Water’ featuring the soft singing hitmakers Musa Keys and Victony, his insistence on relying primarily on the South African import robbed the album of potential deep cuts.
In ‘Nuttin Dey’, where he shrugs off the constant hate he gets and restates his desire for an easy life, the use of the log drum threatened to overshadow the Afrobeat call and response that should have shaped it.
Also, the moment of sobriety that the gospel-influenced ‘Lately’ could have been was sacrificed for another bubbling log drum party starter that while being a top record, could have been better suited for a soulful musical offering.
What helps an album to achieve musicality for a rounded body of work are deep cuts that doesn’t necessarily cater to commercial demands but artistic accomplishments.
On ‘5ive,’ Davido didn’t appear to pay enough attention to this as he managed in the first and last installments of his Time trilogy.
‘A Good Time’ had deep cuts like ‘Intro’, ‘One Thing’, and musically rich offerings like ‘1 milli’ and ‘D & G’ whose quality eventually earned them commercial acclaim.
‘Timeless’ housed musically rich offerings like ‘For The Road’, ‘LCND’, ‘In The Garden,’ and ‘No Competition’ featuring Asake, which didn’t appear to be either hit or doom.
‘5ive’ simply doesn’t have this, or at least enough of it. The songs appear to be a collection of singles meant to maximise his chances of scoring a hit record.
For variety, Davido relied almost solely on collaborations, which turned out to be a case of win some, lose some.
Davido‘s foray into Reggaeton courtesy of ‘Tek’ is a sensual collaboration with Becky G hits the required heights same with his trip to France ‘Lover Boy’ for which he recruits Francophone hitmakers Dadju and Tay C, and Nigerian producer and singer 1da Banton.
If his partnership with YG Marley on ‘Awuke’ is a tame one, ‘Titanium,’ his collaboration with Chris Brown is even more timid.
It fails to hit the heights of their previous collaboration as Davido’s attempt to mirror David Guetta and Sia‘s message of resilience falls flat.
But even a bigger letdown is ‘With You,’ his collaboration with Omah Lay, who appears to half-mindedly mumble through his verse while Davido struggled to fit into the colourful sonic world Tempoe’s production demanded.
Surprisingly, despite the strategic star-studded collaborations, it’s Davido’s solo performances that deliver the strongest moments.
Notably among these solo performances is ’10 Kilo‘, where he adds to the collection of records that pay tribute to or perhaps lust over plus-size women.
A man skilled at making hits, the street relatable lines and catchy hook optimised for TikTok coupled with its 2:17 playtime makes the Louuda-produced record a potential hit.
Ultimately, it’s this desire to deliver hit records and the big moments they bring that shapes Davido’s ‘Five’. He arranged these songs such that the album offers no dull moment while also offering no tangible sonic experience.
However, this mindset isn’t new. It’s what has defined his illustrious career and won Afrobeats a global audience. Davido intends to reinforce his place in the movement even if it comes at the cost of a rounded album.