By: Sola Adeyemo
Music as an art can be tasking. It becomes harder when an artiste doesn’t make it out early. What’s the essence of releasing tracks upon track and not making it to the top. When glimpses of hope are far like the coming of the Messiah, some artiste take a break or find other things to do with their time, we have a whole lot of examples of these scattered in the Nigerian music industry. Later in life, some of them make it through while some of them never smell the throne. That’s one of the sad things about the music industry. Kwate seems to have fallen into this category. Years after releasing song on songs which celebrate love, life, party, the artiste took a break to focus on IT and his business.
Eight years after the release of his last track, Kwate makes a return with a sparkling new track with Black IQ tagged “On Ground,” the Rexxie produced track is a sultry mix of sounds with Amapiano highlighting the instrumental. The Log Drum seems to direct the direction of this song.
This track is filled with self assuring lines. The singer seems to be telling everyone about his freak lifestyle. His love for alcohol,his preference for the best girls. Black IQ seems to understand the assignment, while the audio of this song doesn’t come out so well, he still made sure that he delivers a one type of verse. On the hook, Kwate likened his spending habit to Jagaban, Nigerian president.
Born in Lagos State, Kwate spent his childhood between Ilorin (Kwara State) and Benin City (Edo State). While he was greatly influenced by The Remedies, Trybesmen and others, he quickly found his sound as he was going to the studio at an early stage. By the time he was studying for his first degree in computer science at the University of Benin, Kwate, was already a force to reckon with. His delivery was close to being at mastery level.
On June 27, 2024, Kwate released the remix to “On Ground,” this time around, he called on rapper Magnito and Ayo Sounds. Magnito delivers the intro and first verse of the song. Like expected, Magnito’s verse is comical. Ayo Sounds follows suit with his verse.
The remix is quite short, perhaps, Kwate decided to keep it short and simple. The choice of Magnito, whose “Canada,” track has more than two million streams on Spotify is a smart one, he brings some freshness to the track, in a way, he would make some of his fans listen to the track.
Eight years is a big time in an artiste career mark. So many changes have happened but Kwate still finds it easy to fit himself in. By releasing the original and remix of this song, he smarty makes a statement; he is back. While the world awaits his long expected extended play, they will have to make do with these two songs.
and then