Wizkid occupies the interesting position of being cosigned by 2 artists who famously don’t get along with each other. The bad blood between Drake and Chris Brown is well-document but that hasn’t stopped either of them from supplying sticks to the African pop star’s flame as he blazes the trail on a global scale.
Drake and Chris Brown visit Greenhouse on August 24, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/FilmMagic)
From the outside looking in, Drake seems more intent on collaborating on the music while Chris and Wizkid seem to have developed a real friendship outside the business over time. That friendship was cemented further by the singer handing Wizkid a portrait of himself and signing off on it earlier on in the week, in the middle of their tour of Europe.
If you didn’t know, Chris Brown is a painter as well. He goes by the moniker Konfuzed in the art world and partners with street artist Dee Cosey to produce dope pieces like the one he handed to Wizzy. I’m not sure whether it was actually done on canvas on a wall or whether it’s even a basic JPEG file but when I saw the picture, the Igbo man in me immediately started calculating its Naira value.
And why not? Last year at an auction in Miami, a few pieces of Chris Brown’s art sold for more than $60,000. Chris put up 7 art pieces – two canvases sold for $25,000 each and a third went for nearly $12,000. Do you know how many people’s tuition fee Wizkid can pay for at his former school Lead City University with that kind of money? Yea, that’s right Brymo, eff school.
It’s important to note however that those are commercial pieces, Chris also does paintings for some of his close friends. French Montana had a similar piece handed to him on his birthday. It was the rapper’s first birthday after the murder of his close friend Chinx and Breezy wanted to give French a special gift.
What do you give a man that has everything?
He asked at the time. So he painted a portrait of the best friends together, with the heavens in the background and a pair of angelic wings behind the slain rapper.
Chris Brown hands French Montana a painting of him and Chinx, of blessed memory
Coincidentally, both French and Wizkid have joined CB on the One Hell of a Nite tour at different times. French was on the tour for several dates in the US last year and was featured on a song on Chris Brown’s Before the Party mixtape that shares the same title with the tour, while Wizkid has been a guest in a number of cities on the European leg of the tour. Both French and Chris have often said that rather than their touring arrangements being formal work agreements, they are genuine friends and deeply personal gestures like the portrait go a long way to prove that.
Therefore, the true value of Wizkid’s portrait is more than just money or a single cosign. It’s a clear indication that Wizkid is now being celebrated in circles where only a few months ago he was probably content with just being accepted into. In Drake and Chris Brown, Wizkid is breaking bread and counting chips with two men who don’t seem to care about his allegiance to either one – all they see is the green of the dollar he could bring, the whiteness of his star on the rise and the greenery of the fields in Africa his talents could help them explore.