In a tale of two former Mo Hits all stars, D’banj has struggled to find a producer to build a working relationship as good he and Jazzy’s was, whereas Wande Coal doesn’t seem to have those problems.
Wande has worked with a number of producers since he left Don Jazzy’s studios 3 years ago but none more than the U.K. based pop magician Maleek Berry. Maleek was the brain behind hit songs “My Way” and “Baby Hello” and produced nearly half of Wande’s sophomore offering Wanted. It’s no surprise then that he and Wande would get in touch and try to create magic again on a new up-tempo record titled “Ballerz”. Other than Patoranking’s smash hit “My Woman”, Wande has been quiet in the last few months. This record was presented as one half of a Black Friday special, the other one being “Iskaba”.
All my guys are ballerz /
All my girls are coming too /
It’s great to hear Wande back and firing. There’s something to be said about the advantage of continuity – if Wande has found the formula that works for him, that’s great. The only problem is that Wande Coal’s new record doesn’t sound very new at all. Save for some slight modifications, it sounds like Maleek used the same .FLP file for “Kontrol”, his song, as he did for this, “Ballerz”, and got Wande to lay his vocals.
“Kontrol” has become a hit song in its own right, particularly on the internet, with 1 million streams on Spotify. So hearing a song that sounds almost identical to it come after makes Wande sound like a wave surfer. Also, it makes Maleek either a sneaky genius who’s mimicked what most retailers do on Black Fridays and prey on customers or someone who needs to start saving his Fruity Loops sessions separately. But perhaps that was the whole idea, maybe this is exactly what Wande had in mind. If it is then it’s a new creative low for the singer who may not have problems finding a new producer to work with but certainly has well-documented post-Mo Hits/Mavin challenges of his own.
You be the judge, do the songs sound similar to you?