Davido is shaping the image of Africa through music

It took 7 years for the Afrobeats megastar, Davido to release his sophomore album.

 That’s seven years of love, celebration, culture and community, that could never be captured in just 13 songs. At a panel at Columbia University, the Afrobeats breaks down his truth; facing trials, obstacles and yet celebrating life. Davido’s “A Good Time” shines a positive light on African culture. It uses music as a vessel for impact and social change and enhances the image of Africa bridging the continent and the world. 

To help tell his truth, team Davido enlisted Amarachi Nwosu‘s Melanin Unscripted. The global media platform and agency executed a conversational style panel in collaboration with the African Students Association (ASA) at Columbia University. The panel unravelled Davido’s creative hustle and the journey that took him from a church elder’s son to one of Afrobeats biggest superstars.

Davido speaks about 2019 fondly. It was the time he took to sit back and compile his newly released sophomore album,  ‘A Good Time’. The hitmaker’s latest project was recorded in 5 countries, supporting its message of celebration and collaboration covering themes of love and community. Davido wants to be remembered as an artist who shifted the culture and helped others around him to achieve their dreams. 

With the spotlight continuing to shine on Africa’s creative exports there is a growing desire in our industry for structure, support, resources and knowledge to be shared across our creative community. The need for platforms like Melanin Unscripted, dedicated to sharing the unique stories of the game-changers within the industry, becomes more and more necessary.

The session, moderated by Amarachi, flipped the script on a formal interview style allowing attendees to get a sense of Davido’s story through his lens. The duo covered industry myths and realities. Topics like the formula regarding success, using social media to push your art globally were discussed.  Issues like the popularity of African culture, the desire to restructure the narratives of African culture, and the pride of being African were thoroughly dissected.

Davido runs through his journey, earnestly acknowledging God, but not sidetracking his efforts. Especially when it came to consistent work and unseen failures it took to nurture his talent. The conversation dipped and bopped between his inability to make trap music, how his mother’s party-throwing skills had helped shaped him into a global entertainer, and privilege.  Despite all this, Davido truthfully dug into his struggles, manoeuvering the Nigerian music industry as an emerging musician, and the need for collaboration and building real connections with people.

At the end of the panel, the artiste stressed that the spotlight on Africa is not a phase and the momentum can be sustained through creative collaboration and creating structures or blueprints that can pave the way for the new generation.

Davido’s A Good Time panel at Colombia was not another item to tick off the to-do list in Album promo. It was a deliberate attempt to tell his story his way. A Good Time is a story he needed to share the story in his words. With the growth in popularity of our culture, through music, rises a need to actively protect it. Shaping our narrative on our own and with our own is dire. Davido’s choice of Melanin Unscripted to run a series of campaigns promoting A Good Life was not by chance. It was a deliberate move to keep history, and his story, unadulterated.

The full interview can be accessed below, courtesy of Melanin Unscripted:

 

Listen to A Good Time below: