“M$NEY”: How Much Does it Cost to Extend A Legacy?

Four is the magic number. 

Four is the number of albums it’s taken for the most influential Nigerian artist of the decade to produce music that rouses more indecision than praise. After a stellar run that began with the genre-shifting instant classic, Mr Money With the Vibe in 2022, its equally enigmatic twin, Work of Art in 2023, and the polarising global-facing Lungu Boy, in 2024. Asake returned on May 1, 2026, with M$NEY. This 13 track album with 3 pre-released songs included was one of the year’s most anticipated releases of 2026. Almost a decade after Blaqbonez prophesied Asake to be the industry’s greatest performer, the verdict on M$NEY is one of unease. Mouthfuls of razor-sharp teeth gnaw at this LP, minds wandering off, bodies dancing, and then wandering off again. Four is the magic number. Four is the unlucky answer.

Hindsight makes us all philosophers, and so it might be dishonest to claim that there were signs of a decline. Surely, no one could tell that the artist who began a new album release era in military fatigues and camouflaged muscle cars, then changed to a fleeting blue pixie cut,  and finally arrived at a clean-shaven, luxury-emphasising sartorial aesthetic was undecided on a creative direction. In his defence, Asake’s music has never been defined by looks; instead, it has been promoted more as a fait accompli. Mr Money-era visuals were only as good as the coupled music,  a kind we had never heard before. Lungu Boy, even at its most uneven, was propelled by stunning videos for MMS (feat. Wizkid) and the Hype Williams-inspired Active (feat. Travis Scott), where the music was rocket fuel. But truly, the signs of a lull were present. WHY LOVE, for all its charting success, was tinged with retrogression, embracing he and longtime collaborator, producer Magicsticks’ signature Fuji-Amapiano-Nigerian pop hybrid. BADMAN GANGSTA (feat. Tiakola) wasn’t so revelatory. WORSHIP, produced by and featuring legendary EDM act DJ Snake, was the biggest inkling of what was to come. It premiered to rave reviews at his November 8, 2025, Red Bull Symphonic concert. WORSHIP was released in March to overwhelmingly positive responses. Glory to Lagos Island’s finest, and adoration in excelsis. Cue the album.  

M$NEY opens with the lazily titled Intro, featuring short Zulu chants by an unidentified South African praise group. Translated, the singers admonish us to be careful and keep it together, stating that ‘we’ meet through music, praise, and celebration. These sage-like statements run throughout the LP, although more prominently in the first half. As inspired a choice as Intro is, it also underscores a long-running fault on the album: sequencing. Both the intro and outro, Skilful, are isolated oddities better suited to some other project. Skilful sounds like a lacklustre reproduction of Sunmomi, the closer on Mr Money With the Vibe. Tracks burn into each other jarringly, resulting in sharp transitions like those between Wá and the Blaisebeatz-produced MCBH, and Asambe (featuring and produced by Kabza De Small)—another South-African music homage— and Skilful. A bigger bone to pick is that these discordant switches are placed in-between smoother ones (the two songs before and after Wa-MCBH are high points in this regard), as if to be deliberately inconsistent. 

Much like the sequencing, the songwriting also seems to be deliberately inconsistent. It’s paradoxical. M$NEY is an oculus into the ex-YBNL signee’s mind, a level of candidness many other established artists with stratospheric fame never seem capable of on Afro-pop records. Even if this album were titled “M$NEY, MO₦EY, MON£Y,” it still wouldn’t be enough to capture the wealth of salvos, proverbs, prayers, and enriched sayings on every other chorus. When he’s not waist-deep in Gratitude to God for good fortune—an Amapiano number with striking similarities to late 2000s gospel group Infinity’s Only Praise—he’s instructing calmness on Rora and extolling the ọmọlúàbí virtue of collective advancement. Forgiveness rings with the conviction of one who knows the positive version of a person’s wealth creates, is predicated on constant acknowledgement of wrongdoing (Verse 2 is as bare as we might ever see Mr Money). It’s not the “no billionaire can be ethical” argument, but its humbler prosperity gospel cousin. 

On Amen,  Asake preaches generational wealth and talks about aspirations sans The Story of OJ. The track hides away an uncomfortable truth ignored by fans of mainstream Nigerian pop: artists’ proximity to and alignment with the leaders who have fashioned a hellhole out of Nigeria. Singing “Presido say Èmi lọ́kàn, o dẹ win election/Power in the word, man of God, use for all that I want” is in the same vein as his “Emi l’ẹ̀yán ST” (Seyi Tinubu) declaration on MMWTV’s Dull. It’s a sore invocation of Elnathan John’s Nigerian God, whose doctrine is measured in gold and Naira notes. Far from proscribing a boycott of Asake’s music, or to cower, separating art from the artist, this is simply an invitation to question both sentiments. Art isn’t apolitical. This picture of a humble, grateful magnate is slightly obnoxious. 

Traces of the street-wise lungu boy litter M$NEY. Who else but Asake would reintroduce kamakazi, and by extension, Olú Maintain to popular culture, as he does on Wa? If we ever doubted that Nas was for children, he reminds us with a flourish that “The world is yours, good one from Nas” on Oba, a song that starts out as hip-hop, becomes calypso with a prominent Spanish guitar, transitions to soca, inhabits the spirit of Public Enemy and New York boom-bap with a bongo heart, and returns home to Afro-fàájì before deconstructing again. Magicsticks will receive heapings of praise for Gratitude and Forgiveness—deservedly so—but Oba is where he attains otherworldly status. That’s by the way. 

When the music on this LP is soulless, it is overwhelmingly so. Lyrics engineered for Instagram captions hide between pockets of proverbs. A particularly egregious Wizkid impersonation—the older “phone-the-verse-in” Casamigos feature-slayer Wiz—appears on Asambe. Combined with over-engineered vocals, writing on the second half of M$NEY makes for a frustrating listen. The gulf in clarity between his fuji runs for example, on 2021’s Yan Yan and records on this album—like midnight and high noon—is yet another deliberate inconsistency. After all, it’s not enough that you talk rich, you must sound rich too. Even if that means only those who can afford high-grade listening devices, can hear you. Money, money, money. 

How much M$NEY does it then cost to extend a legacy?

Not enough. Not nearly enough. The paradox of this LP is in its relatability. There are no designer name drops or exotic trips to Mykonos and the one-per cent lifestyle. His story is genuine and hits home—paper trails of the OAU ‘Medoo’ days remain on his X profile till date. For a hyper-religious audience like Nigeria, the superfluous invocations of God on this record are early Christmas presents. Your uncle’s BASIC 2 Class might even stage a koh-roh-grafi for Gratitude, resplendent in white socks and urban streetcar. It is the most in-touch Asake has ever been with the common man, an impressive feat, given that all three previous LPs are exemplified by instructive deep cuts (think of that run from Nzaza to Reason on Mr Money or MMS and Suru on Lungu Boy). 

However, this exists alongside an alienation that’s been building up for a while. The conviction that made older work so resonant is largely lacking here. Except for a few songs, M$NEY comes off as disengaged from pathos.  Before, you were happy for him and desired to experience the world through his eyes, now, you’re still happy, but the distance is palpable. Why that conviction can’t run for the greater stretch of the LP—which by the way is just a minute shorter than Work of Art—is a mystery fancy log drums can’t camouflage. Forgiveness doesn’t stand out on this project simply for its songwriting or immense production. But because he sounds believable. Almost frightfully believable. And somehow, we only get that in moments. 

There will be arguments in favour of taking M$NEY solely as a standalone project, independent of previous offerings. Even in this vacuum, it is weak-kneed. A thirteen-track album with just one good three-track run—individual song quality, not sequencing—is kilometres off being great. Charts will tell a different story. But that’s the irony of charts: Numbers do lie. Jay Z was wrong. Days to years from now, those who disagree with these summations will point to the album’s success as proof of concept. We’ve seen worse albums become classics later on, so that’s all well and good. 

There will also be interpretations that this merely requests the old Asake. Such couldn’t be any farther from the truth. Both his overt and latent growth are visible on the project. It’s what makes the album as encompassing in its contemplation as it is. 

Ask this instead: Are you okay living in a universe where this is Asake’s coup de grace? Not many Nigerian stars are lucky enough to share four ten-track-plus projects with the world in such a short span. Asake is, without doubt, a legend.  That said, if this were his final record, the prelude to a retirement from actively releasing music, would M$NEY be a fitting twilight? 

No, it would not. It is not good enough to extend his legacy. Album number four is better than many will ever turn in—a low bar to cross with mediocrity-laden Nigerian pop music. But it is also like lusterless gold, valuable for the most part but questionable in originality and overall quality. 

In the end, four is the magic answer. Four is the unlucky number. Four is where Asake’s magic sticks fail to cast a working spell. There is not enough M$NEY.