by T.J Martins
The music industry is one intricate, complex web of strategic operations and even organized chaos. Almost every play by an artist, no matter how organic or natural it seems—is almost entirely premeditated or planned to some extent. Casuals aren’t so privy to this and that’s why, unlike industry enthusiasts, they are far more likely to believe in miracles and enigmas, as strokes of magic. However, almost all enigmas can be explained away with logical reasoning backed up by research. Occasionally though, some enigmas would arise that would even be puzzling to the experts.
What Is An Enigma?
Before delving into the crux of this piece, it’s crucial to define the parameters of what an enigma means, especially in the context it would be used. The English dictionary defines an enigma as something puzzling, mysterious, or simply put – a difficult riddle. So enigmas in the music industry mean moves or plays in the industry that yield incredibly good results, despite defying the normal laws and rudiments of logic. A true miracle that is unprecedented and hasn’t been done before and would also be equally hard to replicate.
Bad Bunny & His Global Onslaught
On the global scene, Bad Bunny is the quintessential example. An artist that had his global mainstream breakout year in 2018, with the successful Cardi B collaboration, I Like It, has then gone on to become the most streamed artist in the world and inadvertently the biggest at the moment. His ongoing tour has been the most grossing so far, having amassed over 120m dollars in aggregate gross and a total attendance tallying up to 645,000—the highest also.
Bad Bunny On Stage in Puerto Rico—amidst his ongoing tour.
Nine months into 2022 and he’s about to clinch the title of the most streamed artist on Spotify for the third year running. His total streams are in excess of 13 billion. It doesn’t make much sense for an artist who had his breakout 4 years ago, to be effortlessly dominating veterans like Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, and Ed Sheeran who have spent a decade releasing numerous commercially successful projects and building cult followings.
You could argue that artists have ‘rave’ moments, where their new sound is so refreshingly good and distinct, that everyone wants a taste of it. Well, rave moments at best last for a year and not multiple successive years or even come close to generating the gargantuan amount of success like Bad Bunny has gleaned in the past 4 years. Roddy Rich for example had his rave moment in 2020, where almost everything he touched turned into gold. However, his momentum would eventually wane as expected.
Bad Bunny on the other hand seems to be waxing stronger every year. Despite not releasing an album last year, he still came into 2022 at the pinnacle of streams, and his latest release, Un Verano Sin Ti has been the biggest album in the US so far, and also globally on Spotify.
You can of course make the argument that Bad Bunny is an incredibly talented artist and his albums are good, which they are. You could also even try to chuck it up to the logic that Latin America, his primary market—accounts for the 3rd largest listening demographic on Spotify. But then I’d ask you the question, why then is he streets ahead of J-Balvin, who watered down his delivery in Spanish for a more global appeal?
Asake’s 2022 Madness: An Unparalleled Breakout Year Of Contemporary Times
The Nigerian music industry has also seen the surfacing of an Enigma in 2022 in the form of Asake. The artist has gone on an unbridled run of smash hits, since his major breakout hit single, Omo Ope featuring his label boss, Olamide. A run that includes Sungba and its remix featuring Burna Boy, Palazzo—where he was featured by DJ Spinall, PBUY, Bandana—a feature alongside Fireboy DML and now the most recent, Terminator that shattered records upon its release.
Every one of the aforementioned records—except Palazzo—has peaked at #1 on the Turntable Charts, the music aggregator that sums up impressions of music performance across streaming platforms, radio & TV. All these records are top 10 biggest records of the year and it’s such an unprecedented feat that an artist in his breakout year, or any year at all, would have 3+ songs contending for song of the year.
Yes, we’ve seen amazing year runs by artists in the past. Olamide in 2015, in a run that produced, Bobo, Melo Melo, Lagos Boys, and Don’t Stop, which were all smash hits and culturally impactful records. Davido in 2017, with the ‘pon-pon’ run that churned out hits like IF, Fall & FIA. Burna Boy in 2018, with Ye, Gbona & On The Low. Naira Marley in 2019, with Soapy, Mafo, Opotoyi, Pxta, etc. Omah Lay in 2020 with Godly, Bad Influence, Lo Lo, Damn & You. Even Buju and his sling of successful features last year with Feeling, Bling Bling, Cold Outside, and Mood. However, Asake’s feats are still unprecedented as they all happened in the space of 6-7 months, while the above runs spanned the whole year.
Asake’s run also provided more song of the year contenders than any of the artists, mentioned. Sungba, PBUY, and Bandana are all songs of the year contenders. Omo Ope and Palazzo are also comfortable top 10 records. According to TurnTable Charts, Asake’s Terminator has the record for the biggest week in streaming ever for a single, clocking in at 6.83m beating a previous 4.83m record set by Bandana, another feature of his.
Asake’s sonic impact is also felt in the defining trait of the crowd, choir-Esque vocals implored in his hooks. It was a major factor in the success of Omo Ope, his breakout song and since then, it has been on every song he’s released and also featured on. Other artists have also used the crowd vocals to reasonable success. Veteran producer turned artist, Pheelz on his viral sensation, Finesse and Burna Boy on Last Last. Other moderately successful pop songs released in the year have utilized the setup. Never in a breakout year, has an artist influenced the sonics on such a massive scale.
Not Your Conventional Hit Maker
Another feat is his knack for making hits out of songs that have complex rhyme schemes in their hooks. It’s basic knowledge in crafting pop records and potential hit singles, that you make the hook as simplistic as possible, so it could be catchy, stick on people’s tongues and grow on them. The harder a hook is to sing along to, the less likely it sticks. Just look at Calm Down, another huge record and see how simple its hook is, almost to the point of being elementary. Same for Last Last.
Asake doesn’t play by that rule. Terminator, PBUY, Palazzo, and even his hook on Bandana, all have melodic rapping deliveries that cram in a lot of words. It’s hard to sing along to them, yet these songs have gone on to become big records and people bite their tongues anyway, singing along, as they really couldn’t care less. I do not believe that the Asake madness would continue forever, but the facts can’t be ignored. It’s there for everyone to see. He is an enigma, that even experts can’t explain.
What about the fact that he has also debuted a brand new song at #82 on the Official UK single Charts, without a prior successful version of said setting the pace or the feature of a powerhouse accelerating it, as was the case of the Ed Sheeran version of Peru debuting at #28. The original version did debut on the charts also, but it was months after its release and its position was way lower at #100.
It hasn’t happened before that a brand new Afrobeats release would debut on such a major international music chart without a feature. Last Last, Peru, Essence etc all debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 & UK singles charts months after their release. His debut album, Mr. Money With The Vibe that’s been released to much critical and commercial acclaim is also predicted to debut in the top 50 of the UK album charts.
Since its release, MMWTV has garnered immense acclaim, with fans and critics alike touting it to be a potential classic and one of the best debut albums of recent times.
The peak of his enigmatic run has come in moments where other releases by either industry OG’s or his fellow new generation peers have not been able to topple his songs from the top of the charts. 2022 has been one of the most congested years, in music releases so far in contemporary history—besting 2020. The industry is back to being an album market and almost every artist worth their salt has released or is about to release an album in the year. Yet, Asake’s amazing run has come in a period of cutthroat competition.
Bad Bunny and Asake are the most glaring examples of enigmas in recent times and proof, that just like every area and facet of life, unexplainable mysteries would arise and it will do no one any good trying to rationalize them. Let it be what it is and even appreciate the sheer magic for as long as it lasts, because miracles like they say, do not come around very often.
