A Better Time Album Review
Davido sticks to his tried and true formula on his new LP- create hits and bundle them into an album. So what else do his critics want?
Davido’s latest album ‘A Better Time’ should be titled ‘Davido & Friends’.
In his new LP, Davido’s friends, the rap legend Nas, Queen of all the Barbies, Nicki Minaj, hottest trapper in the game Lil Baby, the bad boy of pop Chris Brown, the eternally happy South African rapper Sho Madjozi, accompany the Afrobeats superstar in his quest for total dominance and scoring a classic LP.
‘ABT’ is a collection of singles and fan favourites without a thematic spine to transform it into the ‘Thriller’-like blockbuster that Davido envisioned but that doesn’t mean it is not enjoyable.
Throughout his career, Davido has been a hit machine, a master at constructing super collaborations with artists such as Naeto C, Mafikizolo, Chris Brown, Popcaan and others. This has been his blueprint from day one which has gotten him to where he is right now.
The first single ‘FEM’, a sly diss to his arch rival was later flipped to a protest song during the End SARS protests and became a success.
‘Holy Ground’ featuring the biggest female rapper of all time Nicki Minaj will be too big to ignore. It is definitely going to be ubiquitous. It will be played consistently till it becomes an earworm.
Davido and his ‘bestie’ Chris Brown team up for the third time on ‘Shopping Spree’ alongside the marble-mouth Young Thug. This song is the Afro-R&B hybrid spearhead by the new gen. ‘Shopping Spree’ maintains the perfect record of O.B.O and Breezy- 3 out of 3.
‘Tanana’ featuring Tiwa Savage is a mid-tempo groove for lovers aching for Saturday evening secret trysts. Produced by the proven hit maker Kiddominant, Davido is direct about his intentions as he sings “It's another Saturday, I ain't come play. I no come sheré, baby, I no come waste time. Me I wan tanana, me I wan tanana. Me I wan tanana, me I wan mekwekwe” in the hook that features a slight ‘galala’ bounce.
On the next track, ‘Mebe’ featuring Mugeez of R2Bees, the featured act stands out more with his delivery. The Ghana bounce in his cadence uplifts the song. Both songs ‘Tanana’ and ‘Mebe’ would fit perfectly into a Lagos evening playlist devoid of traffic.
The soft mood in ‘A Better Time’ enters the next gear on ‘La La’ featuring Ckay. The cloud-soft, teasing hook and a ‘Makossa’ section by Ckay creates a sweat-less-groove for dancers. The soft drums on this track creates a lush, slushy sound-bed that Davido is committed to on this album.
It seems Davido has turned down the heater a few degrees maybe to reflect the culture shift where the newer artists have embraced a slower, cooler sound not favoured by their predecessors.
The mood of a cool evening gives way to a cooler, more sophisticated mood on the Hit-Boy produced ‘Birthday Cake’ featuring Nas. “Cuddle in them Persian rugs, yeah it's us against them. Cartier bracelets, every car is spaceship” raps the QB legend as his pen creates an illustration of love mixed with luxury.
On a rare solo appearance, Davido jumps on the ‘Amapiano’ trend on the song ‘Heaven’. The drum and shaker combo of Amapiano accommodates Davido fittingly. He finds the same success on the Amapiano driven ‘I Got A Friend’ featuring his protege Mayorkun and South Africa’s girl of the moment - Sho Madjozi.
Davido lists the name of his friends and 30BG comrades on this song while Sho Madjozi delivers her patent playful and colourful set of bars. ‘I Got A Friend’ is easily a pick for single which should work in the West and Southern parts of the continent.
And speaking of Mayorkun, the DMW act has been touted by many as the Artiste of the Year for 2020. He kicked off the year with his rap-sung ‘Geng’ and was bold to follow it up with ‘Of Lagos’ during the pandemic lockdown which all became quarantine hits.
He continued his run with scene-stealing features on hit singles such as ‘If No Be You’ by Jamopyper, ‘MJ Remix’ by Badboy Timz, ‘What Type Of Dance’ by DJ Kaywise. He is the leader of the new Lagos sound which has maintained the lamba sound aesthetic and fast pace of older Afrobeats tracks.
Mayorkun wraps the year with ‘The Best’ on ‘ABT’. On this track, Mayorkun pays homage to his boss Davido who he learnt from and cheekily drops a line for singers who focus more on vocal perfection than dropping smash hits.
Deconstructing ‘A Better Time’ track by track you will be hard pressed to find a song that is objectively bad. Davido could have done better on a couple of his solo offerings and his collaboration with Bella Shmurda indicates that his producer Speroach needs to change his production style.
So what exactly is wrong with ‘A Better Time’?
On social media, Davido’s new album has been derisively tagged a playlist, an inferior body of work compared to a strongly thematic album which it seems most of the listening audience prefer these days.
Albums such as ‘Twice As Tall’ and ‘Made In Lagos’ are far from perfect albums but they have been embraced by critics because they are thematically strong. On both albums, Burna Boy and Wizkid sacrificed hits for compact albums that are strong in emotions and storytelling.
On ‘A Better Time’ Davido sticks to his formula, giving the people hits. ABT is no different from ‘OBO: The Genesis’ and ‘A Good Time’. So what’s different now?
There is a culture shift going on in Nigerian pop music now. More fans are demanding better lyricism along with conceptual and thematic albums. The emergence of the likes of Fireboy, Tems and Joeboy have raised this bar of expectation.
People want emotions. Davido is a hit machine but now people want to feel the humanity behind the machine. They don’t want Ivan Drago- the killer Russian boxer in ‘Rocky IV’. They want the sweaty, bloody, more human Rocky Balboa.
To dismiss, ABT as a poor body of work is wrong and dismissive. It is an album that lays itself on the altar of hedonism, pleasure, a (albeit not perfect) descendant of the party, feel good masterpiece album ‘Mushin 2 Mo’ Hits’, that has inspired countless successful pop albums in Nigeria.
You can argue about the road taken to achieve the pleasurable feel, light-party mood of the project but you cannot deny that most of these songs bundled into this project are not individually good.
‘A Better Time’ might not be Davido’s ‘Thriller’, (perhaps the greatest pop album without a clear theme but a strong urge to lump hits into a project) but it has its thrilling moments and they are more than a few.
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