Bridging the gap between his Nigerian heritage and Canadian point-of-view is at the crux of Shopé’s artistry. When he dropped his RIKIKI E.P. in October, it was a sonic attempt to fuse the music of his homeland with the music he heard as a child and teenager in Toronto.
“Rikiki,” the titular song of the project represents that attempt more than any song on the project bouncing between Yoruba lingo and hip-hop cadences across its 2:34 minute run-time. Closing out the project, he delivered a message that accurately represented his reality as a multicultural man.
In the music video for the single, Shopé does more of that cultural blending, enlivening his music with a mixture of dance patterns inspired by Nigeria and Toronto, Canada. The silky singer is more expressive in this pocket of sound, flipping the song’s title to form a punchline and reflecting that defiance in the video perfectly.
Joined by a number of dancers, his lyrics are interspersed by dancing and euphoria in equal measure. And like is repeated on occasion throughout the song, Shopé will never compromise.
