What Is Fireboy Doing Wrong?

On Christmas eve in 2021, Fireboy DML presented his fans with an early gift: Peru, his hit single, was getting a remix featuring Ed Sheeran. The industry rippled with the release; even now, when it’s become easier for Nigeria’s biggest stars to pull features with their contemporaries across the world , a collaboration of Sheeran’s caliber is an industry-defining moment. As Fireboy began to reap the rewards of this single in the following months—a tiny desk NPR performance, sold out tours in the USA, a Billboard Hot 100 entry—observers and fans alike came to two conclusions. First, that his newfound fame was well-earned and the product of the last few years of artistic brilliance. Second, that his trajectory positioned him to be at the forefront of Nigerian music’s elite in the next few years. Two years later, only one of these statements is incontestable.

Jealous, Fireboy’s breakout single, brought him instant fame in 2018. It earmarked him as a potential star, and over the next few years, he worked to fulfill that potential. For Laughter, Tears And Goosebumps, his acclaimed debut album, Fireboy held firm to and flourished in his niche, where guitar-strung musings to a lover could meet fast-tempo Afropop bangers nearly seamlessly. He named this creation “Afro-life”. With this, he achieved both artistic and commercial appeal, a balance a lot of mainstream pop stars struggle to maintain. Less than a year later, his follow-up project, Apollo, established him as the album guy, a member of a small class of mainstream acts who could consistently create cohesive projects, and this time he recruited a few guest artists in D Smoke, Wande Coal, and his label boss Olamide. 

After Peru remix brought new heights for Fireboy, his third album, Playboy, was set to cement his superstar status. For his teeming fans, it was to complete the trifecta, that badge of honor awarded arbitrarily to three consecutive brilliant projects. On Playboy, however, Fireboy became conflicted on both theme and sound. For the first time, his delicate sonic balance wobbled, and as it did, the project lopsided towards other genres—unoriginal Afropop, Highlife, even Reggae—that Fireboy was neither particularly familiar with nor excellent at. Even on its most successful tracks, like the Asake-featuring Bandana or the Drill-leaning Playboy, Playboy did not exude Fireboy’s signature charm. Interestingly, he was also stumbling into profound commercial success, propelled by the blistering streaming numbers of these songs. These figures, however, only served to mask the disconnect Fireboy was beginning to experience with his audience. 

PostPlayboy, Fireboy’s profile has hardly grown. His releases and features in the last two years have skirted around Afropop, twirled through Amapiano and spun round Dance music, but none so far has managed to land mainstream rotation. Yawa in particular garnered significant streams—nearly thirty million on Spotify—but this number becomes less significant when placed against his releases in the past and his profile as an artist. An investigation into the songs provides some explanation for the indifference they received, but it only tells half the story. For Someone, his May 2023 release, Fireboy opted for fast-paced Dance music, limiting African influences to a minimum, with even his lyrics completely devoid of his usual Yoruba and Pidgin infusion. It wasn’t his first time incorporating effervescent dance-ready music (Scatter) or delivering entirely in English (New York City Girl), but perhaps his mix of both proved too much to take in at once. It was created with crossover ambitions, but landed in the chasm between home and abroad, lacking true connection to both audiences. 

Fireboy’s response to this, Yawa, was a mini-homecoming, returning to simple Afropop rhythm, Pidgin lyricism and even incorporating log drums and Amapiano’s signature whistles. He was rewarded for his efforts, as most Pop music makers are, but it came at the expense of losing some of his identity in exchange. An artist’s identity is crucial currency, especially in a crowded industry like Nigeria’s. It might be the quicker route, but every time an artist delves into the realm of instant Pop, especially of the Amapiano flavor, they run the risk of getting lost in the large pool of its practitioners. Fireboy’s most recent release, a two-pack of Outside and Obaa Sima, dived even deeper into Amapiano’s waters, so you would be forgiven if, while listening to the first few seconds of Outside, you mistook it for an Asake song. Even stranger was his choice of features in 2023. In the last few days of June, Fireboy appeared on two songs—FIREGUN and Elon Musk Remix. Both were from the stables of rising stars at the time, well-placed features that would help to raise the profile of an artist who needed it. For Fireboy, however, they were not great fits into his persona and style. Those verses—which had Fireboy trying his hands at Odumodublvck’s Afro-Drill and Shallipopi’s Benin-influenced Street Pop in the hopes of gaining a little of their social currency—were indicative of a failure on Fireboy and his team to recognise his artistic niche and a lack of patience to build up his image in the right way. 

It might also be time to consider if YBNL remains the best fit for Fireboy. Already, the label has exceeded expectations in handling the artist, especially as it was originally formed by Olamide to cater to Street Pop acts like himself and Lil Kesh. At the time Fireboy made his mainstream introduction on the YBNL Mafia Family compilation album in 2018, he was one of the young artists Olamide was set to mentor through the label’s next era. After the response to the album showed clearly the audiences’ favorite —Fireboy’s contribution, Jealous, amassed more streams than the rest of the project put together—the next few years saw Olamide trim the label and focus on his crown jewel. With Asake’s introduction two years ago diverting, or at least deflecting the focus from Fireboy, uncomfortable questions have to be asked of Olamide regarding his capacity to juggle the mainstream careers of three major artists (including his own). 

In a recent interview, Fireboy admits that the past year was “a really long learning process” for him, and that he has learnt a lesson on the importance of focusing on the things that matter. He vows to bring all of this growth to his next album releasing this year, which he promises will be “cohesive and entertaining”. For his biggest fans, that sounds exactly like what he has been missing in the last past year—being able to make music that is simultaneously enjoyable and yet distinctively his. He may currently be experiencing a downtime of sorts, but his talents in both singing and songwriting remain undeniable, as does his appeal to a circuit of adoring fans who have stood by him through this period. Fireboy will hope that they will provide enough thrust for his next project as he aims to return to the elite class he should belong in. To do that, though, he may have to take the slower, harder route and carve out (or return to) his signature identity.