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See! Seyi Vibez Has Got Different Patterns to Make You Listen
In a black and white portrait, Seyi Vibez stands before a congregation of phone flashlights and raises his arms in the air. He is dripped in a long, black leather jacket, mic in hand, and I can imagine the audience singing back “Billion Dollar Baby” at him as the DJ pauses the sound. The stage, where Seyi is standing in this picture, is the 02 Indigo in London which occupies about 3, 000 people at once. And there Seyi stands, a boy from downtown Ikorodu in Lagos, singing his Yoruba lyrics to his fans in a different continent. When the journey started, he might never believe he’d be on that stage someday.
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Since he released “Chance” off his debut album, “Billion Dollar Baby”, Seyi Vibez has been on an immense rise, releasing multiple projects and collaborating with some of the biggest in the industry. Right from the start of his career, he has tagged himself “Vibe Boy” to present what his music is all about – vibes. It doesn’t have to educate or signify a meaning. So far his music gives you the vibes, and then the purpose of the music has been served.
As I write this, “Different Patterns” plays in the background and as the song sinks into my consciousness, I am convinced no one does it like Seyi Vibez. He has often been accused of constantly releasing albums at every given opportunity. In 2023, Seyi Vibez realised four studio projects, the most by any artist in a year. He opened the year with an EP, “Memory Card”, and closed it with another EP, “Nahamciaga”, but released two albums – “Vibe Till Thy Kingdom Come” and “Thy Kingdom Come” – in the middle of the year. Although he sings in “Karma” that angels bring lyrics to him (Lyrics ti ma ko, angeli gbe wa/O sure wi pe won ma gbe wa), my theory is that Seyi Vibez understands that the taste of music consumers, especially Nigerians, changes almost every time. Hence, he has to constantly make himself present in our ears considering the type of music he makes, which is somewhat difficult to categorise as street songs or elite songs.
Although everything is capped under Afrobeats in Nigeria, the music scene exists for music lovers under two umbrellas: streets and pop/elite (non-street). The streets category contains artists who sing in slang and majorly in their local languages; the majority of their lyrics are not often cohesive and infuse “lambas” in their lyrics. The other category contains artists who have cohesive lyrics and sing majorly in English and pidgin. Artists like Olamide, Zlatan Ibile, Idowest and others belong to the streets.
However, as an artist who has also gone global with his songs, it has become quite difficult for Nigerian music lovers to chip Seyi Vibez under a category. Although he won the street-hop category at the last Headies Award, the biggest music award on the continent, it still remains a controversy among the fan base because a street artist is not exactly expected to be global but rather have a stronghold of the hoods and local neighbourhoods. But Seyi Vibez has managed to change this narrative. He now performs his songs on international stages and arenas and to foreign listeners. In 2023, Seyi was the most streamed on Audiomack globally. He’s potentially on the verge of becoming Grammy-certified for featuring on Burna Boy’s Grammy-nominated album, “I Told Them”.
While music evolves and listeners switch interests, I believe Seyi Vibez has different patterns to lure listeners to shazam his rhythm today, tomorrow and forever. As a talented artist, he has the ability to maintain a delicate balance between street authenticity and global appeal which will likely be a subject of ongoing discussion and would garner him more admiration.
