Oluwatobi Wande Ojosipe has had Nigerians dancing for 17 years now. And if the name doesn’t elicit recognition, it’s probably because you know him as Wande Coal. It all began in 2006, when a 20-year-old Wande was signed to Mo’ Hit Records, then the most dominant record label in Nigeria, flourishing under the joint captainship of Don Jazzy and D’Banj. Before he had the nation dancing to his songs, Wande had first danced himself; he started out as a professional dancer. But by the time he was introduced to the Nigerian public, he had become a full-time musician, featuring in D’banj’s sophomore album RunDown (2006), in the songs Loke, Tonosibe and, most prominently, Why Me. What would follow is a wildly and widely successful debut album, Mushin 2 Mo’Hits, which was released in 2009 and animated the Nigerian party scene with songs like You Bad (where Coal reciprocates the gesture and features D’Banj), Kiss Your Hand ft. Ikechukwu, and Bumper to Bumper. And now, 14 years since his debut album, and now widely regarded as a Nigerian music icon, Wande Coal has released his third studio album, Legend Or No Legend, on May 18.
The new album comes 8 years after Wande Coal’s second album, Wanted, and 3 years after his debut EP, Realms, both of which he released under his own record label, Black Diamond. He had left Mo’Hits in 2012 when it folded up, after a fall-out between D’banj and Don Jazzy. Then he joined Mavin Records, but left in 2013 after a disagreement with Don Jazzy over a case of intellectual property theft.
Wande Coal isn’t particularly known for a collaborative instinct and has mostly thrived as a solo act. In fact, he would feature no guest artist in all 23 tracks of his second album. But he opens up to collaboration in Legend Or No Legend, calling on both the old (Wizkid and Olamide) and new (Fireboy DML) faces of Nigerian contemporary music. Coal even turns West-ward and features the American T-Pain, a collabo that has been mooted since 2021.
Unlike the songs that made his career, most of the songs in this new album are without a percussive ebullience. Kel-P, Dunnie, Bruno, K-Dreams and P.Priime, whose production run through this album, create a mostly laid-back sonic-sphere. However, what this album shares with Coal’s previous output is a similarity of theme. 37-year-old Coal wants the same things 20-year-old Coal wanted: love, sex, money, and respect.
In this album though, the emphasis is on money -“hundred million dollars,” as Coal sings in 3 Square Meal. Even in Dues, a song he begins with the line “Dream girl” and whose first half seems to be dedicated to a lover, would segue into the realm of mammon, as Coal sings that he is “getting, getting, getting all this money.”
For Coal, this album is a way to re-assert himself, in case people have forgotten the esteemed place he occupies in Nigerian pop music. Or as he sings in E Choke, “it’s like you forgotten / let me remind you.” And while Coal seems to contend with his legacy in this album—even the album’s title is a give-away—Coal has said he is more focused on making music than in fussing over the question of his place in Nigerian music. In his words:
I am not always on social media, but I was on Twitter one day and I was seeing a lot of mentions, and one guy said “Is it right to call Wande Coal a legend?” and people started ranting. So I took my phone and tweeted “Legend or no legend, I just love making good music.” That’s where I got my inspiration from.