Is Wizkid’s Made In Lagos Album Worth The Hype? (Review)

After he doused the appetite of his core fans with the Soundman Ep Volume One released on the 6th day of December 2019, Wizkid continually teased music listeners around the world with speculated dates of his album release through interviews, tweets and all.

Wizkid

After several delays and postponements running into years, consistent hype from industry insiders/friends and several speculations as to featured Artistes and producers , Nigerian Pop Star, Ayo Balogun popularly known as Wizkid dropped his highly anticipated Album ” Made in Lagos ” on the 29th of October , 2020.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated albums of the year, Wizkid has referred to the “Made in Lagos” album as the best he ever made.

In this review, we examine Wizkid’s Claim and see if ” Made in Lagos ” was ever really worth the hype .

Producers : P2j, Juls, Mut4y, Blackjerzee,London,Sarz, KelP
Features:. Damian marley, Tems, Terri, Burna boy, Tay iwar, Ella mai, Skepta, Projexx, H.E.R
Song Writers – P2j,KelP,
Engineers – Colin Leonard, Leandro Hidalgo,
Genre – Afrobeats, , RnB,
Runtime – 52 minutes
Tracks – 14
Label – Starboy Entertainment Ltd/RCA

A track titled “Grace” would of course sound perfect for The last track on this album . On this track , Wizkid thanks for the Grace upon his life and declares no one can run his race. Not a bad track for an outro .

One thing about the Made in Lagos album is the fact that Wizkid has improved or decided to put more efforts into songwriting and delivering better lyrics.

When singles like ” Joro” and ” Ghetto youth ” were released , a lot of music lovers already predicted an album with subpar lyrics but Made in Lagos proved to be very satisfactory in terms of lyrical input .

Despite being for the most part a ” vibes ” album , wizkid perhaps aware of the market the album is made for and knowing their intolerance for mediocrity ,deliberately invests time in creating very decent lyrics rather than repetitive lines and gibberish which he fed the local scene for a while now.

Read Also: Wizkid “Made In Lagos” Albums Ranks #3 On US iTunes

While there’s improvement in lyrics and songwriting , Wiz however needs to be more cohesive on tracks , switching lines from talking about God’s blessings on track titled “blessed” to talking about doing marathon sex with a lady on the track ” is just not it for an artiste of Wiz calibre.

Production, mixing and mastering are on Made In Lagos = World class. Big shout out to P2J who produced most of the tracks on the album.

While the use of saxophone was quite excessive and unnecessary on some tracks, the general production range and quality on the album is very very satisfactory.

I wonder what a few Northboii productions would have done in terms of the production quality on the album as the fight between himself and Wiz might have led to his creative absence from Made in Lagos.

The track arrangement deserves some praise likewise the featured Artistes. Every single artiste featured on Made in Lagos came correct, perhaps bearing in mind the song is ending up on the project of one of the biggest artistes to ever come out of Africa. All guest Artistes blended on their joints smoothly like hot knife through butter.

Versatility might not really be termed an issue on the album as wiz switches from Pure Afrobeats, to reggae , afropop and then RnB.

Regardless, the similar tempo on beats and non versatile use of the saxophone makes the album a bit monotous at some point. There is no track that actually beams up your energy at any point save maybe ” Roma” . Little wonder a lot of people termed the album ” Elites , Highness and Baby Making music “.

The album also lacks ” Shock Value ” . There is no song on the album that one can say” oh wow, I never knew Wiz could do that “. Nothing really out of Wizkid’s comfort zone as wizkid is fully at ease on the album and like the title of one of the songs goes , Wiz wants ” No stress”.

It must however be stated that there’s really no bad song on the album though the last two tracks ” Gyrate” and ” Grace” come across as Album fillers .

The Branding for “Made in Lagos” is also something to talk about . For an album mainly created for the international market with really slower tempos and vibes not popular among locals in the city of Lagos, the made in Lagos branding would have been more efficient for his first album “Superstar” while the super star title would have being perfect for this new album .

The only major reference to Lagos was the ” cold Mineral, Cold Pure water ” line in Blessed. However, this can be overlooked as the videos from the album can still do a lot to cover the ” Made in Lagos ” theme as can be seen from the SMILE video where amala, suya and owambe mamas ,( three things typical of the everyday lifestyle in Lagos ) were depicted.

Reminiscent of the Sound Man Ep and Sounds from the Other Side , Made in Lagos is an album with very very good songs but no potential ” African lamba” type of monster hit . Like the two previous projects, Wiz has evolved into laid back Afro beats and Carribean influenced musical productions , a side totally different from the ” Iyeyeye” Pop and Afropop wiz that came into the scene around 2011.

Wizkid has reached a comfort zone where he just wants to make music in line with his creative thoughts. He is under not much pressure to fine-tune his outputs to please anyone and this is what happens on Made in Lagos .

We see a more deliberate , more calculated and grown Wiz being at his utmost creative freedom and doing what he truly loves.

Wiz has perhaps created the template the new kids will follow in the next three to four years as he deviates from the norm once again .

One can only hope wiz shoots more videos off the project and takes the promotion of the album serious .

While we await the Deluxe version , Made in Lagos proved yet again that Wizkid is one of Africa’s biggest music export and sure is not going down anytime soon.