Wilmer is Patoranking’s sophomore album and after the success and brilliance of God over everything (GOE), we were expecting a mid-excellent work but Patoranking instead serves us this project that is below par. An album that lacks a unified sound, is missing a central theme/vision, features lazy writing, masses of emptiness on songs and incoherent rumblings despite serving us with some beautiful poetry about the origin of the name of the album. The album name is a dedication to his daughter with a picture of her firmly plastered as the album cover.
However, it’s not enough to provide him with a cohesive direction as the album is filled with poor writing, poor sound selections and eventually, a terribly gaunt work. Nigeria’s dancehall prince is one of the most electrifying artistes in the nation, but this album is so lethargic that despite his best efforts to produce something upbeat, he just worsens the overall sound especially with his use of autotunes. The album is indolent, despite the effort from Patoranking which ends up making his dancehall style sound draconian and arduous. The international collaborations are not enough to clean up the colossal mound of trash that liters a project that has such an adorably beautiful cover.
I can see what he is trying to achieve with the collaborations, but the result is him panning out this slothful and uninspired work. Despite working with certified hitmakers like DJ Coublon, and Sarz, the project holds marginal significance.
“Wilmer” is Patoranking’s ode to his beautiful baby girl and he incorporates the help of French born Georgian singer Bera and it is probably the most well thought out track on the album. Bera’s lending voice is not bad despite the track not being anything spectacular. “Feeling” also gets a pass mark despite not being anything spectacular, but this is his forte with a typical slow reggae sound to work with. Coublon is the producer and Patoranking is using his Patois and telling a love interest he is happy anytime she comes around.
“Temperature” is where it all starts to go wrong even though it’s still Pato’s forte albeit with a more upbeat dancehall sound (quite like Daniella whine). The chorus is basically ‘girl you make my temperature dey rise’ sung about seven times. A lazy and lackluster attempt.
Things didn’t get any better on “Nakupenda”. The chorus is basically nakupenda (I love you) sung soulfully by Kenya’s Nyashinski eight times (how’s that for creativity).
On “Black”, Patoranking mustered a simplistic attempt to provide some meaningful creativity Wilmer. He takes on the subject of race and discussed issues faced by black people. However, the only credit the singer earns here is for his attempt to be woke alone. Nothing else works.
There are a lot of problems on the Wilmer. Patoranking may not know, but “Zero Problémé” is one of those. The song features French singer, Dadju. Your core fans are English/pidgin English speaking Nigerians, but your chorus is sung in French, so I don’t really know what to even write about this record. But at least the next track, “Lenge Lenge” is a single that makes a decent afrobeat record, so we will at least let him have a win with this track.
Now do you remember Donae’O — the “Party Hard” guy? Well he is on this jam titled “Turn Up” where they basically add turn up to Donae’O’s chorus from party hard, so now the chorus becomes ‘party hard, turn up’. This is laziest piece of writing I’ve heard in a while and in a country like ours where the bar for lyrical dexterity is literally dragging along the ground, that says a lot about this song.
“Champion” is just? He is talking about being a champion – some level of confidence he has to say that despite song that gives off nothing but bankrupt creativity but if you think this song is bad, Patoranking outdoes himself on the next song.
“Confirm” is the last song on what has been a painful journey for me and he enlists Davido to make a decent club hit that lacks anything lyrically but that is what we have come to expect from our top artistes. Both men string words together on a decent beat and if it gets the people to move, that’s enough.
Now while I may have been outlandishly brutal in my assertions of this album, it is no knock to the talents of Patoranking and his attempt to make a well-thought out work. His courage to work with his international counterparts should be commended despite its overall results. The fact that he thought to collaborate with a lot of African artistes show that he is willing to evolve and explore the depths of his capacity. I hope this album is a stepping stone for him understanding how to morph several international collaborations and a well thought out theme into something cohesive and beautiful. Patoranking does remain one of Nigeria’s top artistes on any given day despite this experiment going south. He is way better than what he has offered but we expect him to learn and do better.
Listen to Patoranking Wilmer below:
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This is the writer’s opinion on the project and it does not in anyway reflect Filterfree’s collective opinion on the project.