When Asake glided onto the Brooklyn stage for his career-defining Red Bull Symphonic performance — bald, suited, flanked by a 33-piece orchestra — it landed like a declaration of a new self. An artist known for his riotous energy, sleek street style and technicolor dreadlocks bouncing to Sungba, had arrived in a different form: composed, eyes hidden behind thin lenses, his head gleaming beneath the theatre lights. Behind him, twin LED screens mirrored two worlds; New York’s steel skyline and Lagos’ chaotic sprawl, while he stood at the center, the bridge between both. In that moment, his latest transformation was complete. Mr. Money had been made by the streets, but here he stood above it all, an embodiment of realised ambition.
But it wasn’t an overnight metamorphosis. Before the full shave, he had undergone a series of small rebellions; a slow, cinematic unravelling of his old aesthetic. First, he cut off the dreadlocks that had become almost synonymous with his name. Then came the bright blue buzzcut, a brief, playful detour that felt both restless and experimental — like he was testing the limits of his own image. Soon after, the blue vanished too. Clean-shaven became bald, and what might have begun as an aesthetic impulse started to look like ritual. Each stage marked a shedding of chaos, of colour, of the version of Asake that existed under Olamide’s YBNL.
The internet, predictably, went into overdrive. Timelines filled with memes, side-by-side photos, and hot takes about what the new look might mean. Was Asake rebranding? Was the bald head a metaphor for creative rebirth, a cue for new music, or just another round of image-making? In an industry where deleting your Instagram or switching hairstyles can be a press release, fans have learned to read aesthetics as prophecy of things to come. Still, this shift felt weightier; less like a stunt, more a statement.
Asake has always understood performance. Long before the awards and O2 arena sellouts, he was a Theatre Arts student at Obafemi Awolowo University — a literal theatre kid learning how to embody character. That early training shows. Asake doesn’t simply wear clothes; he performs them. Each look is a role, each era an act. The braids and puffers of Mr. Money With The Vibe captured the feverish optimism of a breakout star — all hunger and hustle. The icy jewelry and metallic streetwear of Work of Art reflected a growing confidence, a man testing how far his Lagos roots could travel. By Lungu Boy, the transformation had matured: short black twists, neutral tones, global collaborations with Ludmilla, Travis Scott, and Wizkid. The sound slowed down, the edges softened, and his look — more minimal, more western in silhouette — mirrored the new languid ease of his music.
Now, with the bald head and the sharply tailored suits, Asake’s entering his “I have arrived era.” The restless street prodigy has become a man at ease with power. And it’s no coincidence that this coincides with his quiet exit from YBNL and the launch of his own imprint, Giran Republic. The timing reads like choreography: a clean head, a clean slate. A visual rendering of his independence.
This kind of evolution isn’t new territory for Afrobeats; over time, it has become a rite of passage. Olamide himself, Asake’s mentor, made a similar turn from the trenches to the top floor. His Billionaires Club video which included golf clubs, minimalist mansions, and fencers in white, distilled a particular fantasy of power. Even his collaborations on his recent album, with Jamaican and British artists like Popcaan and Darkoo, are a subtle pivot toward diasporic cool. Wizkid made the same move years earlier. When Made in Lagos dropped in 2020, so did the noise. Out went the chains and loud prints; in came muted tones, Van Cleef bracelets, and silk shirts that whispered wealth rather than shouted it. His fashion matured into quiet luxury — a visual conveyance of ease, not effort.
Asake’s version of that pivot is slightly different. Where Olamide projects authority and Wizkid exudes restraint, Asake performs ambition. His tailoring is structured but expressive — broad shoulders, generous cuts, worn with the ease of someone who knows the camera loves him. It’s not the stiffness of corporate polish but the swagger of self-possession. His aesthetic might flirt with the theatrical, but it never crosses into parody.
It helps that Asake’s charisma does the heavy lifting. In interviews, he’s quiet, introspective — the self-professed introvert whose words arrive sparingly. But on stage or on camera, he expands. His smile flashes easily; his movements feel choreographed but never forced. He’s as expressive in silence as he is in song. Perhaps that is why fashion has become his second language. It’s how he narrates evolution without having to explain it. When he shaved his head, he didn’t announce the change with a caption, the look said everything.
Yet beneath all this reinvention lies a more layered cultural shift — one that extends beyond Asake. Afro-pop’s most visible men are tidying up. The colorful chaos of street style — the riotous tones, the maximalist layering — is giving way to sleek tailoring, crisp cuts, and minimalist confidence. Even Afro-pop’s newer entrants, Fireboy, Pheelz, have traded flash for finish. The visual noise has softened into coherence. It’s not just a change in taste; it’s class signaling. In an industry built on the myth of hustle, clean lines now represent having arrived.
There’s irony here. The street birthed Afrobeats’ most magnetic stars, yet success often demands a kind of aesthetic exile from it. The embrace of Eurocentric minimalism — from Wizkid’s monochrome to Olamide’s golf clubs to Asake’s Savile Row precision — speaks to a deeper negotiation of identity. To be global, the visual grammar seems to insist, one must first appear “refined.” And yet, it’s also possible to read this as a realisation of agency.
Asake’s case sits right at that intersection — with his Red Bull Symphonic performance in Brooklyn, he wasn’t necessarily abandoning his Lagos roots; he was expanding them on his own terms. Surrounded by a live orchestra, choir, and surprise guests like Wizkid, Central Cee, and Gunna, Asake’s sound stretched across genres — afrobeats, classical, hip-hop — without losing its pulse. Behind him, Lagos and New York flickered side by side on screen, as if to insist that both belong to him now. In his grey three-piece suit, bald head catching the light, he looked less like an Afrobeats star and more like an orchestra conductor — directing the spectacle of his own becoming.
Seen this way, his evolution feels less like a departure and more like a showcase of control. Leaving YBNL, founding Giran Republic, shedding the dreads, shaving the head — they all trace the same arc: ownership. The music industry often celebrates reinvention, but rarely does it look this deliberate and self-authored.
Still, in the current Afrobeats economy, art and spectacle are almost inseparable. Reinvention often functions as a ploy to keep the conversation around an artist going, curiosity feeds visibility and visibility brings a larger audience for the music. Every new image also extends the artist’s story. The bald head, the tailored suits, the poised stillness, all of it builds a narrative of an artist unafraid to evolve.
What Asake has mastered, perhaps better than most, is the balance between transformation and coherence. His fashion may amuse, even surprise, but it never betrays him. Each look simply feels like an extension of the same restless performer who braved the daunting crowd at OAU. He has just earned a bigger platform from which he can channel his star power, making change itself his art form.
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