Wizkid Chooses Groove Over Grief On “Morayo”

A new Wizkid album is a major cultural event. It is anticipated for months before and dissected and discussed for weeks after. For Morayo, his sixth, the crescendo of anticipation peaked even higher, but not exactly for the right reasons. Wizkid has become a more prominent presence in Nigerian media in 2024, and it’s down to him shedding his usual reclusive, laissez-faire disposition to reveal an uncharacteristically caustic layer. In March, he denounced Afrobeats on Instagram in dismissive terms: “I’m not Afro anything, bitch.” He spent the rest of the year embroiled in a protracted spat with Davido on social media, launching thinly veiled potshots at his rival long after he had stopped responding. As the sequel to all of this drama, Morayo should have too much to prove and a lot to balance. But Wizkid’s natural cheer means, for better or worse, that any subjects that would threaten his chill demeanor are summarily skipped. 

He contends grief with a similar lightness. Extracting from a mix of Yoruba culture and Abrahamic religion, Wizkid views death as a transition to a better place, and mourning instead becomes a celebration of life. But, like it is wont to, grief rears its head in unexpected places. Fuji-laced album opener Troubled Mind is keen to lay out his mindset so that it sets the tempo: “Right now me just wan vibe and think/ One shot for my mama yeah I miss you.” K1 De Ultimate’s presence here strengthens his position. Fuji music is a common appearance at celebrations, and for the monied, the artist may appear in the flesh to provide an elevated experience. K1, a Fuji legend across any era, performed at Wizkid’s mother’s burial ceremony a year ago, and it is fitting that he now preludes her in-music farewell by her son. 

And while Morayo’s overall mood is ultimately elevated for it, Wizkid stripping it of the essence of his mother’s passing means a lot of what remains is well-trodden territory for him—carnality, festivity, and the supercilious consideration of his status. This time he is more open to collaboration, and the album benefits from it. And more importantly, he is comfortable letting his guests in the driving seats, inserting himself on verses to Tiakola’s French musings on the brilliantly poignant Après Minuit, or trading sultry lines with Jazmine Sullivan on the RnB bop Bad For You. His writer’s room is more open than it’s ever been. He invites Tay Iwar to Lose and Après Minuit, while Aylø and Zichy co-write on Time, a groovy slow-burner where Wizkid can express genuine romantic feelings without alluding to sex. In this way it is similar to More Love Less Ego’s standout Frames, which Iwar co-wrote, and an improvement on his repetitively lascivious endeavors when left to his own devices. 

As Wizkid has grown older, expanded his family, conquered territory and, most recently, become embroiled in controversy, his music has hardly grown to accommodate the increasing complexity of his life. He remains way too chill, a quality that grants him acceptability and makes him easy to listen to, but also ensures his music remains hollow. He favors themes of love and commitment, but his limited worldview in music means he hardly approaches them with a view that allows for more than a one-dimensional experience—sex. So he can never quite match his features for depth. On Piece Of My Heart, Brent Faiyaz acknowledges the futility of a relationship which he has invested too much in to let go of—“Nothing can tear us apart/ You’ve got a piece of my heart”—but is too wary to commit enough to to make it stable—“No, I can’t let you have too much/ Then I won’t have enough.” Wizkid approaches his verse with a different focus: “Pop that body for me, that’s my kind of healing/ Sexual, give me all of ya.” A little later, on Slow, he reduces Anaïs Cardot’s careful considerations of attachments—“I still know when I’m careful around you/ I gotta go slow if I’m going for you”—into an euphemism for passionate lovemaking.  

P2J handles the lion’s share of production on a third consecutive Wizkid album, and he provides Morayo all the variety Wizkid intended, employing minimalistic soundscapes for the Slow and Lose, while on the other end of the tempo scale, Kese‘s emphatic call to action— “You go dance, gbedu”— is saddled over Fuji-laced percussion that renders his invite irresistible. Wizkid attempts to inject Morayo with a distinct freshness by walking back the Anti-Afrobeats social media posts of March, as he embraces Afropop’s big drums and carefree themes for Bend, Karamo, and Soji, but these sound dated and betray his waning grasp of the genre. He performs much better on the vibrant duo of A Million Blessings and Pray, where he nestles in his ego, one of the few aspects of himself that he fleshes out on Morayo: “The competition, omo, where you dey?/ I plaster stand every day.” On the latter, the closer, he invokes his mother whilst recounting with gratitude his journey from Ojuelegba dreamer to global songstar, a journey she was a partner to in every step—“I know my mama pray for me/ And I know the heavens dey for me.” Morayo may not wear its grief like a badge, but Wizkid honors his mother in poignant moments, choosing to begin and end the project in memory of her. Although his grass-to-grace story is far from novel material, to see him recount it with so much feeling and effort grants Morayo an added intimacy. 

Wizkid’s two singles leading up to Morayo—Piece Of My Heart and Kese (Dance)—promised a variety the LP ultimately delivers, but raised expectations for a level of quality and attention to detail that he struggles to replicate across the board. Morayo shines when Wizkid puts his back into inventive and intentional writing, or when he has someone else do so. When it doesn’t, it finds Wizkid languid and tepid: floating in songs that are wholly inoffensive, but largely inert. As a unit, however, Morayo ultimately feels like progress, if not because it is his most serious and sincere attempt since Made In Lagos at innovation—a feat that was doubted to be possible—then because it reveals his fluidity with collaboration, allowing fresh perspectives to enrich his artistry without losing his signature suavity.