On Friday the 13th of November, David “Davido” Adeleke released his third studio album, a follow-up to his 2019 album, “A Good Time” and called it “A Better Time”. The 17-track album has a host of guest artists including Nas, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Hit-Boy, Tiwa Savage, and Nicki Minaj among others.
According to him in an interview with Complex Magazine, he didn’t expect to record another album in 2020, as he was booked to be on a world tour, “The pandemic had a lot to do with it because I was on tour, which I had to stop.” he said. “If I was on tour, I’m not sure I would’ve had time to really record but being in Lagos, at home, I was recording and recording so many songs and it ended up being really good. It took about two or three months but when I first started recording it, I had no plan, I just wanted to have fun with it.” And have fun with it he really did, because he found ways to seamlessly blend Hip-Hop inclined sounds with Afropop and give us quite a banger of an album.
From him opening the album with ‘FEM’, the long awaited single that garnered so much excitement from fans worldwide when it finally dropped, to him giving us lover boy vibes on ‘Jowo’, to having amazing chemistry with Nicki Minaj on ‘Holy Ground’ over a SperoachBeatz instrumental, giving us the latest wedding anthem with ‘Very Special’ (to be honest, Davido has always been great at creating love songs, hasn’t he?), he and Mayorkun (anything Mayor of Lagos touches turns to gold) ripped it up with ‘The Best’.
The next track ‘Shopping Spree’ comes in next with both Chris Brown and Young Thug riding the beat effortlessly, then next comes my personal fave, ‘Sunlight’. There’s just something about those songs where he’s almost screaming, crying, or both at the top of his voice.
If someone told you in 2011 that you would hear Nas rapping over the same beat as Davido, you’d most likely tell them they were crazy, but Hit-Boy made it happen and it was so damn fire you wouldn’t believe it. To close the album out, we get ‘I Got A Friend’ featuring Mayorkun and Sho Madjozi & ‘On My Way’ featuring Sauti Sol, and we all know from past experience that Davido doesn’t dull on South African House beats, so do with that information what you will.
All in all, O.B.O gave us a banger of an album to close out the year. A delicate mélange of sounds from different parts of the world., and he made them all work! Production, lyrics (yes, even his lyrics are fire on this album), delivery, and creativity.
The tape gets 4 flame emojis out of 5 over here. Stream ‘A Better Time’ below, if you haven’t already been jamming to it.
