There comes an inevitable point in a musician’s discography where the pinnacle of their niche aesthetic is reached, and they are faced with the ultimatum of branding themselves within the limited parameters of a signature sound or pivoting towards a universal one with the end goal of cross-over success.
Then there are anomalies who toe the line between the opposing forces within this ultimatum matrix.
Nigerian singer-songwriter Adekunle Gold, who doubles down on his pop-esque moniker AG Baby, is one such exception. Merging the intersection between cult classics and social media/club bangers, the don of urban highlife hoisted his superstar status to the stratosphere with his latest offering, Catch Me If You Can.
Catch Me If You Can plays into the familiar tropes of the current landscape of African pop music, like romance, sexuality, the hustle, and amapiano experimentation. All may come off slightly repetitive; however, following the acclaim garnered through his Gold and About 30 albums and the aesthetics produced, the superstar felt he had hit his creative ceiling. He needed to reinvent his style to make it globally accessible.
AG enforces his songwriting and vocal prowess to create music superior to the majority of Afropop’s leading males. His voice soars, without the aid of auto-tune, on the God-honouring “Mase Mi”. The lilt of “More Than Enough”’s melodies, call-and-response vocals, horns, and soft guitar sweetly allude to the highlife of his earlier days.
“Sinner” (featuring Lucky Daye) and “One Woman” (featuring Ty Dolla $ign) are the miracle babies on the album, which have both shared social media success and present themselves as interesting case studies. “Sinner”, compared to its TikTok contemporary fillers, is the more organic one as opposed to “One Woman”, where Ty Dolla $ign’s verse is geared for TikTok. Think about it. Ty’s line (“Wait… she’s really hot”) is the perfect transition oriented towards make-up/dress-up content creators. I may be biased, but I feel songs that blow up authentically on social media have an evergreen quality next to songs which give off the impression that they were made for social media.
AG dives deeper into the much-needed renaissance of vulnerability in modern pop music with the different kinds of love found in “Sleep” and the rebirth of poetic sexiness in the Stefflon Don-assisted “FYE”. While “FYE” does present explicit nastiness (“Your booty bouncing / your body issa ten ten” and “beat it up, beat it up, cemetery”), the poetic nuance of AG’s “Can I deep dive in your ocean now?” sparks the return to being Romeo and Juliet.
Merging the newest kid on the African export block and amapiano into the ascension of the Afrobeats wave, we find Davido lending his suave delivery on “High”. Dabbling between the wordplay of “Aight” and “High”, the tongue-twisting, hip-shaking dance ensemble sets the album’s curtain call through the fragrant and inspired outcry for persistent love “Dior, Dior, Dior” (featuring Fousheé), the rebellious and anti-social media anthem “It Is What It Is”, the toxic love story of “Selah”, and the affirmative titular song.
Always on the move, the working man of faith has his claws deep into household name status. Despite the failed attempts of critics, naysayers, and other hosts of negative energies, his rise to prominence remains uninterrupted. Catch him if you can; you know he’s the man.
