The second time I found myself around Dbanj in a space of 24 hours, he made a joke about my name. It was a Friday evening on a boat around Ikoyi. A person on his team had just introduced me and other guests invited to a cruise with Dbanj. As he visibly tried to commit my name to memory, he said, “Oreos, Oreos. My daughter likes Oreos, so I will remember your name.”
He laughed at his joke and said I shouldn’t worry that he won’t spoil my name. But there was nothing to be worried about. His joke is the type of mischief that one imagines this man who has always appeared to be having fun would indulge in. And as the skies darkened that evening, he danced, pranced, laughed, drank, and joked even more.
The one moment of calmness came when he got on a video call with his wife. It was the one reminder that this man who is firmly entrenched in our minds as a naughty, raunchy youth now leads the conventional responsible life of a married adult away from the public.
Before and after that moment, there are a few things I wanted to know about the new album.
What are his three favourite songs on the album? “Yours Truly,” he said, before he got distracted. Later, as the songs play and the boat moves and moves, he told me he couldn’t really complete the list, as though he was still finding new tracks to love.
How did he get Egypt 80 on the new album? “I was working with Egypt 80 and Seun Kuti on my last project,” he said. They bonded apparently. “That was covid time…this is actually the oldest song on the album.”
When was the album done? The very day of its release, he said, before explaining that he had wanted a female act on one song but decided to go ahead with the version of the song that was uploaded to streaming platforms. A remix with the act will follow at some point, “As I always say,” he said with a smile, “the song is not done until it is released.”
Collaborator Wishlist
Which younger acts would he have loved on the album? “Victony,” he said.
I tell him that I’ll assume that Dbanj can get Victony on his album. He doesn’t disagree. So, what happened?
“Music is so different now,” he said. “I wanted people to feel me.” A song with Victony and other acts may then turn up. Is that for another album? He responds, “More like a deluxe”.
As we make our way back to land around 7.30pm, a member of the Dbanj team has a bright idea. Let’s have people dance with him and move like they’re going out of the boat, a camera getting it all. The guests are happy to oblige. And when it’s time to file out and go home, Dbanj, who remains in great shape, looks like he could have continued entertaining us all for a few more hours.
Which is why I had asked him earlier that, 20 years in and in his mid 40s, what is the source of this energy that I have now seen up close across 24 hours? “It’s God, men,” he said as he continued to dance. Later, he turned to me and added the punchline: “Don’t worry, I go release my product…Kokomycin!”
He laughed and, at that moment, turned away from me to grab the handle of the boat. He lifted one leg and did a few pelvic thrusting moves in time to the music playing.
A few cheers rang out, while I marveled at the cheeky vigour on display.
The Entertainer Album Release Event
It all began a few days before.
I hadn’t thought about Dbanj in a while when someone in a WhatsApp group I belong to shared a video featuring the man. Gideon Okeke was playing a torturer. Dbanj was his victim. Then came Don Jazzy as a sniper. It was just like the old days.
Which you may not be able to relate to, if you’re below a certain age. But for pop music lovers of my generation, Dbanj means something and Dbanj and Don Jazzy together means even more. These are the creators of songs that would live forever in our brains. People in the WhatsApp group seemed happy these two were back together. One person made the inevitable Don-Jazzy-rescues-Dbanj joke. Someone else rose up in defence: Dbanj is almost certainly a billionaire. Trust the Nigerian to limit every value to the financial.
In any case, sometime later, a message came in. A boat cruise with Dbanj was going to happen. Can I make it? I could. But then, a few hours before the appointed time, another message showed up. The boat was out of it; instead we’ll get a listening session of his new album, a sequel to the one 2008’s The Entertainer. Time: 6pm. Venue: W Bar. No problem. I did the math. Knowing how these things go in Lagos, the event should begin, say, two hours after the organisers have said. So, if I show up an hour after the advertised time but an hour before the event proper, I can take in the lay of the land before things begin.
Of course, my calculations were entirely off.
A lot has happened since the Dbanj released Entertainer. I have graduated from university. I have fully left home. I have even left the profession for which I trained at the university. I have held a few jobs. I have founded two magazines. Dbanj himself has had quite the changes. His partnership with Don Jazzy has broken down. He has gotten married. He has had unsavoury news. He has released several albums. He has started his own label. He has passed from new cat to veteran. One of his old mates has released an album sorta asking whether he’s a legend—a clear indication that youth is slipping away or has slipped away from the late 2000s set of Nigerian popstars.
And yet, because pop music is mostly a young person’s game, the truly successful popstar will always find it hard to say goodbye. What are they supposed to do with all the music they still have inside? One answer is to keep on making it and releasing it. Which is precisely what the indefatigable Dbanj has continued to do.
What Retirement?
Our paths have crossed twice in the time between the two Entertainer albums. Once in Abuja, he graciously took a photo with a group of my friends. And then, in Lagos, some eight years ago, I met him backstage at an event I was invited to moderate. At the time, he had his trending song was “Emergency”, which I had reviewed. We shook hands and I told him it was a superb jam. He beamed and said, “If you people keep saying that, I can retire.”
Well, we must not have said it enough because here I was years later at W Bar to listen to his new record. What retirement?
I arrived as I had planned and was told by suit-wearing bouncers that I’ll need to wait outside for an hour before getting in. Where would I be waiting? No response. I had to make a call to get them to let me in. And then, it would take hours and hours before the man of the moment showed up. At around 10.30pm, some kerfuffle alerted me to his presence. Cameras, men, girls poured into the bar with the man. The music will begin.
A few acts had performed before his appearance. They all were talented, but it also seemed clear that none of them had that extra thing that would lead to a long career. The night’s one female act had something but that was about it. If talent was all it takes, then they’ll be fine. But pop music isn’t really a game of vocal or lyrical talent.
And that was the insight into the business of pop music that even some of the genre’s most ardent listeners do not know. Dbanj always knew. A great songwriting ability is good, a soaring voice is nice, but the greatest asset in pop music is personality. With a capital P. Add a decent tune, significant funding, and a lot of luck to that and you’ll be fine. And as the night began, that shiny Dbanj personality was evident in spades.
Before his appearance, the guests who were obviously smarter at Lagos math than I was started to appear. I saw actress Iyabo Ojo and reality star Neo Akpofure among them.
Dbanj: The First Mega Superstar
As Dbanj took to the stage, the deejay began to play “Mo Gbono Feli Feli“, an apt choice given that it begins as though heralding a momentous event.
The night’s host, an unashamed fan, began with platitudes. “The GOAT waz good,” he asked. Dbanj, clad in shiny black shirt, red shoes, black shades, and earrings, beamed. The host announced that the evening wasn’t merely about listening to the new album, it was also “the celebration of the man called Dapo”. I believe I heard him say at some point that we, by which I think he meant contemporaneous pop music lovers in Nigeria, didn’t have a mega superstar until Dbanj.
The next day, I’ll have an argument with a pal on this point. Was Dbanj the first true superstar of what we now call Afrobeats? She said PSquare and Tuface were superstars, which isn’t a point to argue. But I understand what the host was saying. If you think of Afrobeats as a genre that travels, then Dbanj was the king. He was the only one of his generation of pop acts to have a crossover hit single. That was “Oliver Twist”. On that basis, it seems fair to claim he’s the genre’s first mega superstar.
On stage, he radiated charm. Even seated, he radiated more charm than a host of his successors have been able to muster even when performing or doing some challenge for Tiktok. In fact, the nonexistence of TikTok in Dbanj’s time is probably why he didn’t have more songs crossover to the west. His fist-thrusting phallic move and his punchy catchphrases were made for viral dances and Instagram captions before anyone knew what those were. As he later said during his discussion on the W Bar stage, he presaged the direction of modern pop. Listen to the last track of his 2008 album:
You know the good thing about being an entertainer? Ah! You can entertain them, let them move their body. You don’t have to make sense, you don’t have to make sense. I’m serious…
In 2008, that was a line some would argue against. In 2024, those words are indistinguishable from scripture.
“Dem don warn me say no be show…say na experience,” Dbanj said. He was brimming with energy in a seat that could barely contain him.
It was time to hear the first song on the album. What to expect? I wasn’t sure. But as it began, I realised that Dbanj was calling back to the older album. There’s the harmonica, there’s that unmistakably naughty voice, and, finally, there’s that chorus riffing on the word “koko”.
That’s why it is titled Entertainer, D’Sequel. He is reminding us that this is who he is. He made a comment about how it was never really about the lyrics and today that’s exactly what the culture says music is about.
“You saw the future,” said the host.
“Nostradamus,” Dbanj replied, smiling.
Does DBanj Have A Grammys Plan?
As the songs played, he mentioned the acts who had contributed in making the record. Olamide received praise as did Peruzzi, the man behind a significant percent of songwriting on the album.
“I wanted people that reminded me of 2004,” he said referring to the year he got into the music industry. That was the reason he had acts like Youssou N’dour, Akon, and Awilo on the album. These were the people who inspired him back then. “Kala”, the song with Awilo was recorded when the Congolese came to Nigeria.
“In one take, he killed it,” he said. For better or worse, the song did sound like a song made by two people who were famous 20 years ago.
As for ‘Worthy’, the song with N’dour, it seemed like the idea was to make something that would have a chance at a Grammy nod because he and Angelique Kidjo are the usual tools for Nigerian acts seeking Grammy gravitas. Angelique may seem the more accessible instrument; Dbanj has gone for the rarer option, so the better angle, if there is indeed a Grammy plan, is for the campaign team to position the two singers as veterans of African pop music coming together. But the song’s video, which came out before the album, suggests the angle at play is African unity. That’s a quite different meaning from the lyrics. When the list of nominees for the 2025 Grammys show up, we’ll see if it works.
Whatever happens, it is clear that this is Dbanj’s best album since the DBanj/Don Jazzy era. Its best tracks were songs that calling back to the old Entertainer album. Which means “Koko” and “Koko remix” are standout tracks, the latter featuring a super-impressive Akon.
New Cat Dbanj
Unable to contain himself, Dbanj had started to move on the stage. Whatever else can be said about the man, he definitely loves music and performance. “Shout out to ‘The Pen Peruzzi!’” he said at one point. Two decades later, the energy remained.
That energy seemed transferred to “I Am Legend”, a collaboration with Wyclef Jean that I found immediately appealing. It is not clear that that a song with a title taken from an ancient Will Smith vehicle with an artist young people may not know will hit the culture. The song itself was something that could have been on one of Wyclef’s more Haitian projects from back in the day.
When the host mentioned that by recording a song called “I Am Legend”, he cannot deny being a legend, Dbanj replied, “I’m a new cat meow!”
But the actual new cats Odumodublack and Bella Shmurda walked in as the album played. They got onstage and shook greeted Dbanj and the crowd. It was almost 11.30pm. Stories about the man’s ostensibly epic 20-year journey came forth. It was Akon who named Dbanj African Michael Jackson. And it was a Punch article covering an Eedris concert that led Dbanj to take music seriously. That the writer had spent a lot of his words on this opening act and not the main performer on the night was enough motivation.
More young cats continued to enter W Bar. I spotted rappers Blaqbonez and Cheque. By then the listening session was drawing to a close. The last song, ‘World Famous’, played just before midnight and fireworks went off outside the bar. Inside the bar, the night’s fireworks were coming from only one man. As he had said at some point, even if there’s negative energy in the room, “my energy go light you up!”
The sequel might not light things up to the same degree that the original did almost two decades ago, but Dbanj can still light up his environment—whether it be a room or, well, a boat. 20 years on, that’s a feat worthy of applause.
