Spread the love

Pop star Davido’s song Fall is reportedly taking over radio stations in the United States of America and the song is described as one of the biggest to ever come out of Africa.

This is according to a report by Rolling Stone.

Davido’s song Fall even ought to have reached greater heights in the country, according to the report.

Read Full Report Below:

The Nigerian style of music known as Afrobeats has quietly entranced a large swathe of the world’s population. “Pretty much every song on pop radio [in the U.K. now] is sort of a Mr. Eazi-style, chill, afrobeats [track],” the producer Riton told Rolling Stone last year. But Nigerian singers have not yet established a foothold Stateside, despite well-received, afrobeats-dusted singles from established stars like Drake and Janet Jackson.

So it’s unusual that “Fall,” a springy, 19-month-old track from the Nigerian singer DaVido, is currently gaining traction on the airwaves. The growth has been gradual: 482 plays to date, spread across 36 stations, according to Nielsen BDS, which tracks radio activity. BDS reports that four new stations added “Fall” into rotation last week.

Those are admittedly not huge numbers — for comparison’s sake, Post Malone’s new single “Wow” grew by 1,700 plays last week alone. But listeners who hear “Fall” are scrambling to find their phones: It was one of the Top 100 most Shazam’d singles in America this week. In New York City, “Fall” was a Top 10 record on Shazam. And in Atlanta, another crucial market, only two tracks were getting more Shazam activity than DaVido’s.

Eliciting that level of interest in America is no small feat for an African singer. Columbia signed “Pana,” a 2016 single from Tekno, but wasn’t able to transform it into a U.S. hit. RCA signed Wizkid, the guest on Drake’s “One Dance,” but hasn’t been able to get a hit either. (RCA is also working with DaVido now.) Burna Boy, another Nigerian singer with impressive talent, is now affiliated with Atlantic, but his “Rock Your Body” didn’t reach a wide audience in America.

That has nothing to do with the music — “Pana” and “Rock Your Body” are both indelible polyrhythmic pop songs, wonderfully weightless next to the lead-footed trap that currently dominates both rap and pop radio in America.

But the machinery that creates hits in the U.S. remains conservative, even in the supposedly “new” era brought on by streaming.

Nowhere is this more true than at radio, which throws its still-considerable weight behind only a tiny number of tracks — “A Top 40 radio station is playing five songs 120 times a week every week,” according to one radio insider — and rarely takes risks on music that doesn’t align with seemingly-ancient-if-not-totally-incomprehensible norms.

Mainstream “urban” radio usually won’t play Latin trap next to American trap, even if the same producers worked on both tracks, or pivot from hard hip-hop into soft R&B. Meanwhile, pop radio tries hard to ignore viral rap records, which programmers characterize as “pretty extreme,” in favor of bizarre but ostensibly more palatable concoctions by Panic! at the Disco or Marshmello.

Even some Top 40 programmers are confused by this tendency: “I don’t know when everybody’s gonna get it through their heads that we can’t just keep forcing these pop songs that nobody likes down everybody’s throat,” Nathan Graham told Rolling Stone last year.

Radio also depends on a favor system of sorts: Artists play station concerts, stop by for interviews and record drops to help get their music onto the air.

This is costly for artists without American passports. “To work the U.S. is big money — even getting music onto radio in New York alone might cost you upwards of $100 or $200 grand,” the Nigerian star Mr. Eazi explained to Rolling Stone last year. That’s another reason why, “at the end of the day, nobody has properly broken an African act in the U.S.”

It’s too early to tell if DaVido can establish a new path from Nigeria to the American airwaves — his team only recently started “attacking US radio properly,” according to an email from the singer’s manager, Asa Asika.

But there’s no denying that when listeners hear DaVido’s music, they are immediately compelled to figure out who sings it.

And that’s not just the case with “Fall.” This week New Yorkers were also trying to determine who steals the show on local rapper Casanova’s new single “2am” (Shazaming Top 25). Surprise — it’s DaVido. He is also the artist behind the 2017 track “If,” which is Shazaming Top 50 in New York.

DaVido’s success appears to be a boon for other Nigerian artists as well.

Afro B’s “Drogba (Joanna)” was even higher than “Fall” on New York Shazam this week. If more radio programmers are willing to give these artists a chance, they may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

67 COMMENTS

  14. I have been surfing on-line greater than three hours today, but I by no means found any fascinating article like yours. It’s beautiful price enough for me. Personally, if all website owners and bloggers made just right content material as you did, the internet shall be a lot more useful than ever before. viagra.

  40. The very crux of your writing while appearing agreeable initially, did not really work perfectly with me personally after some time. Someplace within the paragraphs you actually managed to make me a believer but just for a while. I still have a problem with your jumps in logic and one would do well to help fill in all those breaks. When you can accomplish that, I will surely be fascinated. levitra

  43. Wonderful items from you, man. I have remember your stuff prior to and you’re just extremely wonderful. I actually like what you have obtained right here, certainly like what you’re stating and the way in which wherein you assert it. You’re making it enjoyable and you continue to take care of to stay it smart. I cant wait to learn far more from you. That is actually a great web site. viagra generic

  55. I just want to say I’m new to weblog and actually liked this web page. Almost certainly I’m likely to bookmark your blog . You really come with outstanding articles and reviews. Thanks for sharing your website page.

  58. I simply want to say I’m new to blogging and truly liked you’re web page. Almost certainly I’m planning to bookmark your website . You actually have impressive posts. Thanks a lot for sharing with us your website page.

  60. Hi! I’ve been following your site for a while now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Atascocita Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the excellent job!

  61. A different issue is that video gaming became one of the all-time biggest forms of excitement for people of all ages. Kids have fun with video games, and adults do, too. The particular XBox 360 is just about the favorite gaming systems for folks who love to have a huge variety of video games available to them, in addition to who like to learn live with other folks all over the world. Many thanks for sharing your opinions.

  62. My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on a number of websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform. I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

  63. Hi! Someone in my Myspace group shared this website with us so I came to take a look. I’m definitely enjoying the information. I’m bookmarking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Exceptional blog and fantastic design.

  66. With havin so much written content do you ever run into any problems of plagorism or copyright violation? My website has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my agreement. Do you know any ways to help protect against content from being ripped off? I’d definitely appreciate it.

  67. After study just a few of the weblog posts in your website now, and I really like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web site listing and might be checking back soon. Pls try my site as properly and let me know what you think.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here