by Stephanie Onajite
Twenty-two-year-old Crown Uzama, popularly known as Shallipopi, has the majority of Nigerians singing in a language they do not understand.
On the 14th of March 2023, the Benin-bred artiste released his hit single titled Elon Musk, produced by Too busy fingers. With its catchy lyrics and replay value, the song won the hearts of the people in no time as it took over the airways and had over 24,000 videos of people doing a dance challenge with the sound on TikTok. The icing on the cake has to be the word Evian being on the lips of many.
What does Evian mean? What does this catchy chorus translate to? These are the questions the listeners are asking following the release of the track. To some, Evian is a clique or a coven, and to others, it translates to jazz or voodoo. Regardless of the original meaning of the slang, Shallipopi lets us know that there is surely a deeper Evian than yours🫵🏽.
It is a rare sight for an artiste from a minority tribe singing in his dialect to have Nigerians in a chokehold, but Shallipopi seems to be understanding the assignment and is playing his cards a little too well. A closely related scenario is YBNL’s Viktoh who teamed up with Lil Kesh to create the hit single, Efejoku, in 2016, where Viktoh rapped in his local dialect. It was disappointing that he didn’t remain in the limelight, but it looks like Shallipopi is here to stay.
With how successful Elon Musk became, it was only right for it to be followed up by a remix. Music star Zlatan and lover boy-turn-pluto boy, Fireboy added their verses to spice the track up.
A few steps into the journey to stardom, Shallipopi became faced with a setback as the news spread like wildfire that the singer had been picked up by the police with charges of internet fraud. With his hit song containing lyrics about crediting BTC and receiving payments, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must have had their attention drawn as they traced him down to Kaduna to arrest him alongside his manager, Ajayi Abdul Hafeez.
The hashtag #freeshallipopi flooded the internet as the fans of the artiste demanded his release from police custody. This entire incident is similar to that of 2019, following the arrest of musician Naira Marley, who was also picked up by EFCC with the hashtag #freenairamarley trending on the internet too. This boils down to the big question; Is Shallipopi the new generation Naira Marley? He seems to be following in his footsteps religiously.
On the 23rd of June 2023, Shallipopi was released from jail, and he proved to Nigerians that he is resilient enough to come back stronger than before as he releases a new song titled Ex-convict, a depiction of who he has become.
Three days after its release, the song breaks the charts and it climbs up to the number one spot on apple music NG, a big win for artistes as Nigerian apple music users cannot get enough of the track. Grammy award-winning artiste, Wizkid, not only publicly declares his love for the song via his Insta stories but also captions his latest media post with a line from the track.
Afrobeats mega superstar, Davido, also shows the singer love in his DMs, quoting lines from his latest song. With two of the biggest artistes in Africa rooting for him, Shallipopi is definitely on the right track if he keeps threading well.
One noticeable thing about the new-gen artistes is their consistency. They never seem to run out of songs to release at such short notice. Shallipopi proves that he is a part of the pack as he drops a 6-track EP three days after his latest number-one hit, and he titles the project Planet Pluto. The EP opens with a beautiful sample of Osemwegie Ebohon troupe’s Oba Ovoramwen, a classic popular among the people of Benin City, Nigeria, that sings the praises of the late Oba Ovoramwen, a Benin king in the 1890s. Ahead Ahead, Speedometer and Melanin Touch are the other tracks that make up the project, asides Ex-convict and Elon Musk remix, that were released beforehand. The artiste doesn’t seem to be fading out anytime soon as he talks about beating the one-hit-wonder allegations. The EP hit number one project on apple music NG, twenty-four hours after its release.
Several artistes like Sarz, Johnny Drille, Rema and Santan Dave(👀) have been taking Benin to the world for a while now but it’s safe to say that Shallipopi is here to bring the world down to Benin.
Listen to Planet Pluto here
