Born Again To be A Sinner: The Incredible Rebirth of Adekunle Gold

He started out as a lover boy, looking for his Orente and claiming he was ready to be taken. Now, he's a bad boy with appeal looking to satisfy his hedonistic urges.

I think I’m getting to that point where I cannot go a week without writing to you. I’m elated that it’s becoming a habit, and even when I think I don’t have enough juice, the thought of you guys seem to revitalize me, so here I am.

What do I have for you this week? Okay, so first of all, I have important news. As I continue my attempt to scale this newsletter, I’m learning the fine art of collaboration. So, I have a new team member and his name is Tunde. Tunde is an impressively smart guy.

But yeah, we’re not here to talk about Tunde. What then? Which brings us to the primary reason of this week’s newsletter: the golden boy whose transition from lover boy to bad boy, from Orente to High, is making heads turn. Experiencing the transition of an artist, especially when it’s as smooth as this one, is like watching sprouting leaves unfurl, and each petal yields a colorful bloom. It’s like the birth of a new child.

Like every successful artist, Adekunle Gold has a story. Before he broke into the scene many years ago with Sade, a rendition of One Direction’s Story of My Life, he was a graphic designer. A young man with dreams of one day becoming a star. Just like he had ambitions, he had resolve. As a graphic designer, he gained popularity for his incredible Photoshop skills, which earned him the title ‘King of Photoshop’ on Twitter. The picture that particularly earned him that title was a photoshopped picture of him hugging Tiwa Savage.

But Adekunle Gold’s graphic design skills weren’t limited to photoshopping pictures. We learned that he created Olamide’s YBNL logo and other artworks for the label and its artists such as Viktoh and Lil Kesh. Then one day, everything changed. How so? He released Sade and it was a hurricane in the Nigerian mainstream. And just like that, the audience received him with their arms wide open. The year was 2014, the industry wasn’t as friendly as it currently is, but it made an exception for Adekunle Gold. Sade was nominated for Best Alternative Song at the The Headies 2015.

In 2015, stars aligned and Adekunle Gold signed to Olamide’s YBNL. For some observers, it was difficult to see how an artist like Adekunle would prosper under YBNL. And their concerns were valid. After all, Olamide was chiefly recognized as an indigenous rapper. How was he going to successfully help a Highlife artist achieve success? Those concerns were quickly tossed in the bin when the singer released another single titled Orente. The premise of the song wasn’t altogether different from Sade’s yet it elicited something in many of its listeners. It pulled them closer into Adekunle Gold’s world of love and romance.

He released his debut album in 2016. The album, titled Gold, contained 16 tracks and only featured Simi - who was virtually responsible for the mixing and mastering of the whole album - on a track titled No Forget. He worked with genius producers like Masterkraft and Pheelz. Gold debuted at number 7 on the Billboards World Album Chart. It was a huge win for the Highlife singer who interpolates genres such as Fuji and Juju in his music. His predilection for fusing genres was marked by songs (on the album) that carried elements of soul, neo-soul, (urban) highlife, and Afropop. For a debut album, it was fairly successful. It received nominations respectively from Nigeria Entertainment Awards (NEA) and The Headies.

And when you look at Adekunle’s journey before music gave him a platform to achieve his goals, it wasn’t without bumpy roads. Adekunle Gold revealed in an interview with Native Mag that he auditioned for the MTN Project Fame twice and was rejected. Together with his best friend named SeyiKeyz, the singer created a band “The Bridge” while in the Lagos State Polytechnic, releasing songs like No Sleeping on a Bicycle and song that featured Skales, titled Norm Breaker, in 2012.

Adekunle Gold’s music is strongly influenced by the music he grew up on. He utterly enjoyed listening to Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Ade during his childhood days. That was practically his memorable introduction to music. His interest nudged him to join the choir, and by the time he turned 15, he had written his first song. A few years down the line, not noticing any progress in their career, Adekunle Gold, whose real name is Adekunle Kosoko, ditched the band and decided to run solo. It was a decision coated in bravery.

Destiny favored him and as such, three years after making that decision, the Highlife singer was a bird soaring in the sky. And what made it peculiarly intriguing was that we watched him take off. Adekunle Gold’s contract with YBNL expired two years after, in 2017. He was moving really fast, like a comet. His first single Call on Me after leaving YBNL was divergent. It was maybe the first time I heard Adekunle on a dancehall instrumental. Simi’s vocals were strategically littered all over the song. It was evident at that point that he wasn’t willing to be boxed in, especially as he had often been referred to as an Alternative singer.

One producer that Adekunle Gold collaborates often with is Pheelz. The two share discernible chemistry. Before the end of 2017, Adekunle Gold released a song Money, produced by Pheelz. He’s a true artist, in the sense that he sings about his experiences and how they affect him. On Money, he stated how overwhelmed he was by his financial needs. The realness of the song was heavily resonant with his fans and music listeners generally. It was in that same year that he unveiled his band named The 79th Element.

The bedrock of Adekunle Gold’s music is his distinct native style. He typically sings in Yoruba, lumping it with English and Pidgin. The singer tapped his longtime best friend and collaborator, SeyiKeyz, in the first quarter of 2018 to produce his single Ire. The collaboration birthed a poignant song, a slow-tempo tune with heavy traditional percussion. He also employed Simi’s backup vocals, as her voice swims in the wavy guitar strings. The accompanying music video reinforced the message that the song carried. Then a few months later, he released his sophomore album, About 30.

About 30 featured heavyweight names like Seun Kuti and Flavour. The album title was noticeably inspired by his age at that time. It was a portrayal of his journey in life, continuing with the themes of aspirations, love, desire, relationships same as his debut album Gold. Sequentially, About 30 seemed to follow Gold as its numbering began from Track 19. AG, as he’s commonly referred to, himself revealed that some songs on About 30 were songs that didn’t make it to Gold. About 30 was rife with highlife classics, as is the signature of his music. It was a culturally relevant project, making AG one of the few acts who have remained true to their art.

The most conspicuous change in Adekunle Gold’s music started with his 2019 single Kelegbe Megbe. It is also arguable that it was obvious in Before You Wake Up - an uptempo track that illustrated the magnitude of AG’s love and appreciation for his partner - that the singer was steering his career in an unprecedented direction. AG and Simi had gotten married furtively a few months earlier. They creatively made the announcement via a song Promise, where they both professed love to one another. The music video for Promise also had some scenes from their marriage. It evoked a lot of ‘God when’ posts on social media.

But with Kelegbe Megbe came the whole package. The music evolved. There was a complete makeover in his image. The branding became more intentional. His music videos were richer in quality. It was so subtle and smooth that nobody batted an eyelid. His traditional look had become more defined yet unconventional. Basically, Kelegbe Megbe was the genesis of AG’s beautiful transition. It dominated airplay and digital charts for weeks. His music was gaining popularity in the UK and France around this time as well.

Towards the end of 2019, Adekunle Gold released a single titled Young Love. It was produced by Sess The Problem Kid (the same producer behind AG’s Before You Wake Up who has also produced songs for the likes of Falz and Niniola). By the second quarter of 2020, Adekunle Gold released his highly-anticipated studio album titled Afro Pop Vol 1, which was preceded by Something Different and AG Baby. Prior to all of these, at the beginning of 2020, he featured Kizz Daniel on a track titled Jore. The song was well-received by several music lovers, as both singers took turns on the track, imprinting it with their individual trademark.

Working with Blaise Beatz revamped Adekunle Gold’s sound. It came with a certain maturity in his music. Something Different - the first official song where they collaborated - was a mammoth record. Afro Pop Vol 1 featured big names in Afropop like Patoranking and Tekno. The project was commercially successful, and one striking characteristic asides from the global appeal it held was how AG transformed from his usual style of using his native dialect in his lyrics to a more recognizable language. AG’s music was more pop in its delivery on this album than his previous albums. One of the standout tracks on the album was Okay. It has generated at least 20 million streams on YouTube.

2021 seemed to be AG’s biggest year in the mainstream. And why wouldn’t it be? The singer kicked the year off with a single It Is What It Is. He continued his run of working with producer, Blaise Beats. His fanbase had significantly increased, after a successful campaign of his album (Afro Pop Vol 1) that saw him release crisp and enticing visuals.

As his first single of the year warmed the hearts of his fans, Adekunle Gold enlisted American singer Lucky Daye for another single titled Sinner. Sinner was such an infectious song, with more western influence than Afropop or any traditional Nigerian genre and Lucky Daye’s angelic voice was just the required flavor. The music video featured Simi and the couple couldn’t hide the affection they shared for each other.

When AG teamed up with Davido, the result was a smash hit that topped venerable charts for a long time. The Pheelz-produced song was so massive that on the streets you could chants of Davido’s ‘Watimagbo’ on the song. Adekunle Gold’s lyrics on High presented a hedonistic version of the singer. It was curiously exciting to realize that AG is much more than the lover boy persona that he won his core fanbase over with. It opened our eyes up to the limitless potential of his artistry.

It is safe to say that Adekunle Gold and Blaise Beatz are certified hitmakers. They linked up once more to create AG’s latest single titled Mercy. The record has since accrued more than 2 million streams on Audiomack since its release this year. The song, which opened with Simi on the intro, is thematically based on betrayal and fake love. He seeks the mercy of God as he delivers the song in a style reminiscent of Baba Fryo’s Denge Pose. I consider the song to be experimental although it’s nothing out of the box in its approach. The song is said to be the lead single to AG’s upcoming album titled Catch Me If You Can.

Maybe is going to take us in another direction this year. Let’s see what he has up his sleeves.

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I hope you guys are enjoying your weekend. I’m not making any promises but this newsletter has more interesting content coming your way. So, sit tight.