Yesterday, Tekno released “Be”, his latest single since the release of his late 2016 pseudo-political number, “Rara” and “Yawa”, his first release of the year. Over the past 23 months, Tekno has evolved both a distinct style and remained consistently at the top of Afropop royalty with hit after hit, since the release of “Duro” in 2015. The conundrum Tekno’s music seems to struggle with however is the same problem of any pop subgenre in the world: longevity after initial hype.
The singer’s winning streak is reminiscent of a similar run by Canadian rapper, Drake who has consistently managed to churn out hits that stay atop charts for weeks, before slinking into irrelevance and out of conversations. But
unlike Tekno, Drake is aware of pop music’s limitations, hence why the rapper has built his release formats in a way that allows him to keep career in top flight while making the possible best of hype-based releases.
Last month, Drake released his debut playlist, More Life, a string of loose singles tied into a streaming only release (as of the time this post was written). Minus the lack of a cohesive narrative to classify “More Life” as a singular body of work, Drake’s presence on the playlist is also occasionally reduced to lone verses and hooks, leaving featured artists to do most of the work. The strategy worked for Drake, and More Life has since surpassed a billion digital streams, capping off an earlier win of a total 550,000 digital copies sold in the week after the release of the playlist via online stores. For Tekno who is an adept producer, singer and songwriter, this is a great cue to follow.
The death of the album format may now be a global phenomenon label executives are dealing with, but Nigerians are already over familiar with the inability of artists with great singles to replicate the same brilliance on albums. For Tekno, the battle for post-single release relavance would be half won with a playlist that compiles his best production, guest verses and singles into a single non-album release. “Be” is Tekno’s fifteenth release since the singer first surfaced via an alternate refix of Ice Prince’s “Oleku” in 2012. There is no doubt the singer has enough material to put into a collection.
However, Except Tekno decides to craft a debut album with a tight narrative and relatable themes that capture his state of mind or the era in which he has come to celebrityhood, an album release may be only un-achieivable act of his of his nearly flawless run. But instead of putting pressure on his album’s survival with an attempt to make it a body of work, a streaming playlist of good singles released at once can also be a sure strategy to ensure maximum conversion for his first full length project.
