As Uncle Ben, Ben Ogbeiwi, revved his piano keys to Yemi Alade’s “Ferrari”, his reluctant passenger was finding it hard to enjoy the ride. It was Project Fame Season 9 and the highly-respected instrumentalist was trying to get a contestant to channel her inner wayray and remake Yemi’s latest hit, but she struggled. Say what you want about her lyrics, the truth is that it isn’t easy to recreate the intensity with which Nigeria’s pop princess performs them.

Sir, this is actually very funny

The contestant said as she chuckled in a room full of her fellow contestants. The atmosphere was tense, so understandably there were no other smiles in the room but her’s. However, that feeling of “what the…” was exactly how I felt when I heard the same record for the first time, so I could relate to that contestant. 

For much of 2016, Yemi Alade has been roasted for “Ferrari” and some of the other lyrics from singles on her sophomore album Mama Africa. But that album ended up being one of the most successful from an African female artist in 2016, so the public definitely know something that we don’t. Last year, according to reports from Pulse.ng, the singer made as much as N100 million. In 2016, a year in which she won the best female artist at the MAMA’s and at SoundCity’s MVP Awards, the singer reportedly now commands $40,000 -$50,000 for international shows. We can laugh all we want but the truth is that Yemi Alade and Effyzie Records smiled to the bank and to podiums in 2016, so who’s the joke really on?

That said, commercial success doesn’t cover for artistic shortcomings and sometimes commercial success is a bigger factor than it should be in determining which artist goes home with awards. Since she left Bayo Omisore’s Jus’ Kiddin’ Records in 2010, Yemi has taken some creative liberties in a deliberate attempt to broaden her appeal. The switch in her style was around the same time Omawumi’s “Bottom Belle” took materialism mainstream and when Tiwa Savage introduced a new level of sexy to Nigerian music, so I cannot say for sure that it was all down to the label change. But the Yemi of “Fimisile” and Yemi of “Ghen Ghen Love” 3 years after are not the same person –

– nor should they be for that matter.

The new Yemi Alade is a sexy and boisterous young woman, who’s not afraid to demand for the finer things in life from her lover but who’s also perpetually competing with other women for his affection. The singer now invests a disturbing amount of energy in creating uptempo, pop music that fit this persona to a T. Perhaps the songs fit this persona too well, that’s the reason why “Tumbum” sounds like part 2 of “Johnny” and “Dorcas” sounds like the completion of the trilogy. Perhaps she knows a lot of women can relate to these stories, the way she tells them, so whereas her first album had a couple of sweet love ballads, the more uptempo Mama Africa had none and was filled with more of these types of songs instead.

But that is not all Yemi Alade has to offer, I insist that a lot of her critics listen to a handful of her singles – which is only a fraction of her catalogue – and try to form a complete opinion about her artistry. The frustrating thing is that both of her albums contained music that showcased other sides of the singer – King of Queens more than Mama Africa – however it’s no mistake that Effyzie chose to heat up the fluffier stuff and serve them to the public as singles. If the public keeps responding to Yemi with their wallets, expect this persona to remain alive and kicking and for the singer to find less and less imaginative ways to describe her. If there’s any part of Yemi’s catalogue that should be criticized in my opinion it is this aspect, the “Ferrari’s” and the “Tumbum’s”. However, in striking those watery pop songs down, I think we have to be realistic about what Nigerian pop music has become, elDee of PlayData recently confirmed what a lot of us already suspected.

Yemi’s lyrics on those songs are particularly repetitive and painfully simple and whilst it’s okay to hold her feet to the fire, it’s also good to recognize that a number of alternatives on the radio are not fantastically different either. That’s perhaps the reason why Yemi felt that social media was picking on her unfairly, became defensive and tried to play the gender card.

I don tire for all this self-acclaimed critics in this Nigeria. They don’t do any form of research, they don’t listen to the artist’s songs. I’m upset about this kind of thing, I just really think that people don’t know when they’re actually being biased gender wise. They don’t know when they’re trying to pick on females. Enough is enough, y’all just shut up! 

But that’s not exactly true either, social media gave birth to #IcePrinceBars and when the honeymoon with Tekno ends, best believe his mindless melodic music too will be cross-examined. Yemi Alade needn’t feel alone or singled out. The best writers of pop music, like her, by default find the lowest common denominator of their audience and appeal to it. Sometimes they go too low because, rightly or wrongly, they believe that’s the level of their audience and the lower the barrier for understanding, the more listeners they’ll get. It’s usually at those very  low points that they meet resistance from critics.

In Africa, whether in Swahili, Twi or English, this common denominator usually means the language of the song is written in a manner most people with primary school level education will understand and contains common slangs, made-up words and simple stories that they can relate to. The melody is simplified and repeated to the point that it sticks in their head and the beat sped up to a pace where they’d have no other choice but to move their feet. Yemi has been particularly successful around Africa because she recognizes that. Her music is banging in parts of the continent where English is not the only lingua franca and where literacy levels are lower than Nigeria’s.

Even in the US, a so-called advanced country, about a year ago a study found that the most popular songs are written at just a third-grade reading level. The study was reached by an analysis of 225 songs that spent at least three weeks at the top of the Billboard charts over the last 10 years. Third grade is primary 3 in Nigeria, the music elite with greater education and more exposure who demand more from their pop stars have a point but also need to understand that they are in the 2% and it would be foolish to abandon the 98% if that’s the only way to get them on board. The ideal situation would be for every pop artist to strike a balance, like the great 2Baba did in his prime or like Kiss Daniel seems to be doing so far in his current form. But perhaps everyone has a different path and if you ask me, I think Yemi is using the path that P Square, who went global by appealing to the masses, paved the way for.

I like the path Yemi Alade is on and I do not believe she needs new songwriters as much as she needs different ones – additions, not replacements. I believe the singer and her producers do a good enough job as-is. I also believe her more substantive singles need to be promoted with greater intensity to show the singer’s other dimensions, although whether that’ll make proper business sense is another matter. Perhaps this is where songwriters with the ability to combine craftsmanship and commercial appeal can come in. The Yemi Alade story needs a little variation, so that the very vocal 2% will be carried along.