Last week Shallipopi posted a snippet of a new single, Na So, across his social channels. The monochrome clip is typical. He prances around a studio, flanked by an all-too-eager gaggle who cavort excitedly in the background. The actual song features a brooding melody and a wickedly jaunty beat, redolent of his early work- songs like Elon Musk and Shapiru. He’s nimble in and out of flows and peppers the beat with the sing-songy, cheeky lines we’ve come to love him for. Notably, it’s his third of the snippets—either released on his page or surreptitiously—to have come out since he released Laho.
Laho’s lore is as fascinating as it gets; we watched as the song slowly emerged from the backstreets of TikTok to become one of the biggest Afropop numbers of the year, so far. At the time he dropped the snippet, who could have guessed? But the song’s towering success has eclipsed an important fact, which is that Shallipopi’s releases, starring from Shakespopi, up until Laho, were lackluster.
After releasing the baffling “disasterclass“ that was Shakespopi, his second studio album, which came out in 2024, he seemed adrift, and his eagerness to move on from this phase suggests he was, to some extent, aware of the project’s shoddiness. Benin Boys, his collaboration with Rema, managed to temporarily rescue the situation. But after releasing the uninspired and excruciatingly listless Free Service; followed by the confused Order, which features Olamide, and reads as a garish imitation of the flavor of Afrobeats Rema heralded with Heis, he was all but left for dead, or at the very least creatively exhausted.
He had his evanescent moment in the spotlight, which had now unfortunately come to an end, the thinking seemed to go. But just when we were poised to shift our focus away from his direction, Laho dropped, steering his story back into sunny terrain. But the reprieve provided by Laho is only temporary. After every successful effort, the question that invariably follows is: What’s next? This is a question that’s increasingly becoming a rowdy chorus among Afrobeats enthusiasts. And he looks to be keenly aware of this.
So far, his answer has involved a slew of Laho remixes, interspersed with snippets to gauge the public’s reception to his prospective new offerings. In April this year, he put out Laho II, which features Burna Boy. This month, he released the third version of the song, which features the Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro. A putative snippet with British rapper Central Cee has also surfaced on social media. He’s aware that his next single will in many ways shape his career trajectory, but he also has been fixated on juicing his golden goose to the maximum, before lurching back into uncertain territory—this is the balance he has sought to strike.
This has, however, had the unintended consequence of, once again, making him look adrift. A remix of a successful song is all but expected in these times; two is slightly pushing it; but three starts to look worrying. It gives the impression that he’s perhaps afraid to make the next leap. This is also not helped by the fact that he has now teased three snippets, none of which have dropped.
In December last year, Shallipopi, alongside a coterie including Seyi Vibez and Muyeez, parted ways with Damilola Akinwumi and his label Dapper Music. The split was reportedly a result of financial disagreements. And while it’s Shallipopi’s prerogative to decide his representative, the fact remains that with the exit of Akinwunmi, he lost a seasoned ear. Which to some degree explains why he has looked to be dithering in the past few months, despite the momentum he has gained from a viral hit. It’s possible this latest snippet, Na So, will languish in his hard drive like his other snippets have, while he chases the next iteration of Laho. But it’s also possible that this is a leap back into the great unknown. At any rate, he stands at a crossroads and his next decision will decide how his story unfolds.
