As the wheel turns
From all indications, Omawumi is back and ready to get back to work following her maternity break. Her management team has rolled out a new website, with updates on future releases. After a comeback appearance at 2face’s Fortyfied concert in September where her performance of Only me was warmly received, Omawumi has been quite the busy bee. In November, she tested the waters by dropping a cover version of Adele’s smash hit Hello, opening the floodgates for the dozens of Hello covers that followed. Her reggae tinged version made generous use of autotune and she struggled in hitting some of the high notes but her audience welcomed her back with mostly positive responses.
Omawumi is ready to do the merry go round one more time. She has completed work on her third album, I am Omawumi and has posted visual snippets of the record’s lead single, Play na play, a duet with international superstar Angelique Kidjo. She has gotten back into the flow, doing work for the brands which she endorses and has resumed performing duties full time.
In many ways, Omawumi has been a ground breaking pioneer the whole of her career. She may not have benefitted from a glossy PR firm to effectively channel all of her accomplishments but the results of her hard work and persistence are quite obvious. “She kicked down the door and opened it for a new generation of female performers and taught them that they could dare contemplate a career in pop music.” Says Isabella Akinseye, host of the youth focused show The Frontpage that airs Sundays on Radio Continental. “There is hardly any female performer this current generation- Waje, Tiwa Savage, Seyi Shay- who has not been influenced directly by Omawumi. She was the first to sit at the table with the boys and she plays the game based on the same terms as the guys, no special privileges. Wizkid, 2face, she is right up there with them but does not always get her due.” she adds.
Not all of her mentoring efforts have yielded fruits though. Her best friend and soul sister Waje repeatedly cites Omawumi as an unfailing source of inspiration but Omawumi’s relationship with Mercy Chinwo, the season 2 Nigerian Idols winner whom she had taken under her wing appears to have soured as Chinwo’s post Idol career stalled.
It is hard to imagine the past half-decade without Omawumi’s vibrant comforting presence and she has constantly proved herself a force to reckon with. Even though the industry wasn’t sure what to do with her at first, she has through hard work, talent and sheer determination staked her claim on the pop charts and in the hearts of her fans.
Not bad at all for a Warri girl who moved to Lagos in her twenties, eight years ago.
The industry has not seen anyone quite like her since. For who else but Omawumi can take a dark song about incest and make it irresistibly funky? Or make a hit single out of a song recorded in memory of her late father and sung mostly in her Itsekiri dialect?
Omawumi’s discography is littered with genuine chart topping hits (Bottom belle, In the music) and future classics (If you ask me, Serious love nwantinti). With her afro wigs, old school vibes, decently written songs, and knack for crafting earworms, Omawumi certainly wasn’t the pop star the industry was expecting. But she is the one they got. She didn’t quite fit the mould. But once she stepped in, somehow, she made it all work for her. Now you know her name.
Omawumi.
Say it loud.
