Barely a week on from their viral hit collaboration ‘Amapiano’, which has already amassed over 20 million global streams, African music icon Olamide and Nigerian pop star Asake are back together again, with another banger titled ‘New Religion’. Serving as the lead single for Olamide’s highly anticipated forthcoming album Unruly, the accompanying music video for ‘New Religion’, which dropped last night, has already smashed over half a million views – you can watch it here.
Olamide is one of Nigeria’s biggest stars, and one of the most successful artists to emerge out of Africa, with over one billion global streams. Equally at home emoting over a buoyant afrobeats rhythms, as he is rhyming over a pulsing trap beat, Olamide is known for his multilingual-style tracks that showcase his abilities in English, Pidgin and Yoruba, and have become essential afrobeats classics – from ‘Wo!’ and ‘Motigbana’, to ‘Fada Fada’ with Phyno, and ‘Kana’ featuring Wizkid.
He is also the founder of YBNL Nation, which he has grown into one of Nigeria’s most influential and respected record labels. Since forming the imprint more than a decade ago, he he has helped launch the careers of afrobeats royalty such as Fireboy DML, Asake, and Adekunle Gold, just to mention a few. The African music icon also comes championed by global tastemakers such as Billboard, Pitchfork, Forbes, Rolling Stone, and The GRAMMYs, among others.
Olamide shared his classic debut album Rapsodi in 2011, and has since dropped more than half a dozen projects including the more recent 2021 album UY Scuti, which has amassed over 200 million streams, and 2020’s widely successful Carpe Diem that birthed the massive hits ‘Infinity’ and ‘Loading’. So far in 2023, every song he touches has turned to gold, whether it’s ‘Kpe Paso’ with Wande Coal, or the CKay-assisted ‘Trumpet’, and with his new album Unruly coming this summer, Olamide is showing exactly why he is one of the biggest stars on the continent.
