How Wizkid killed all competition in two weeks

Wizkid

Ayodele Ibrahim Balogun, aka Wizkid, was on Sunday at the Eko Convention Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos named the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) Artiste of the Year.

That same day, in faraway Holland, the 26-year-old walked away with two gongs at the MTV Europe Music Award (EMA).

It capped two weeks that saw the former Empire Mates Entertainment artiste bag seven international awards.

All that came, according to a message the artiste posted on Twitter on Monday, by ignoring the noise and focusing on being better.

It is a long way from 2015 when Wizkid lost the MTV Africa Music Award (MAMA) Best Male award to compatriot, Davido, and was ridiculed by fans on social media.

Things began to change towards the tail-end of 2015, as collaboration with American pop star, Drake, and Skepta on the remix of his single ‘Ojuelegba’ silenced his critics and earned him Song of the Year at the Headies.

Since then, the young man has not looked back as he has jumped on several hits, notably his reciprocal effort on Drake’s single ‘One Dance’ which charted at number 21, while on May 12, 2016, the song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The last two weeks have seen him kill off competition across Africa to reign supreme at MAMA, Music of Black Origin (MOBO), MTV EMA, and AFRIMA.

It started with MAMA in South Africa on October 22 when he beat AKA (South Africa), Black Coffee (South Africa), Diamond Platnumz (Tanzania), and Patoranking (Nigeria) to emerge Best Male.

‘Soweto Baby’, which he did with DJ Maphorsia and DJ Buckz, won the Best Collaboration prize ahead of ‘No Kissing’ by Patoranking ft. Sarkodie; ‘Unconditionally Bae’ by Sauti Sol ft. Alikiba; ‘Baddest’ by AKA ft. Burna Boy, Khuli Chana and Yanga, and ‘Juice Back Remix’ by Nasty c ft. Davido and Cassper Nyovest.

Wizkid’s biggest triumph at MAMA 2016 was Artist of the Year for which he bested Black Coffee (South Africa), Diamond Platnumz, (Tanzania), Sauti Sol (Kenya) and Yemi Alade (Nigeria).

Next came Music of Black Origin (MOBO) where Wizkid defeated Mr Eazi, Moelogo, Tekno Miles, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, Olamide, Mista Silva, Eugy, Kwamz and Flava to emerge Best African Act.

And on Sunday, the ‘Hola at Your Boy’ star, triumphed over Olamide, Casper Nyovest, Alikiba, and Black Coffee to win the African artiste of the year at the MTV EMA.

He was also named Worldwide Act at the award ceremony held in Rotterdam, Holland.

Finally, on that same Sunday, Wizkid shrugged off competition from Flavour, Diamond Platnumz, Sarkodie, AKA, Tiwa Savage, Sauti Sol and C4 Pedro to win the 2016 AFRIMA artiste of the year.