Davido

The distance between West Africa, the Caribbean, and the U.S. has grown vanishingly small in the 21st century, and few singers exemplify that more than Nigerian Afrobeats star Davido. Born David Adedeji Adeleke in Atlanta in 1992, Davido grew up bouncing between his dual hometowns of Atlanta and Lagos, Nigeria. He was a huge fan of hip-hop and R&B and tried his hand at rapping in a group with his cousins called KB International. But after a trip to Lagos during college, he fell in love with the city’s burgeoning music scene and moved there to dive into Afrobeats, the West African pop music that mingles hip-hop, R&B, highlife, dance music, and dancehall. By 2011, he was making a name for himself with effortlessly danceable singles like “Dami Duro.” He’s got a knack for finding irresistible hooks and deploying his gruff-guy-next-door vocals to achieve a sound that’s both sweet and intimate. And he works hard: A prolific collaborator, he’s guested on countless Nigerian singles and has joined forces with artists from across the continent, including Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie, Tanzania’s Diamond Platnumz, and South Africa’s Mafikizolo (on the deliciously genre-crossing “Tchelete”). His friendships extend across the pond as well: American rapper Gunna and Jamaican dancehall artist Popcaan appeared on Davido’s 2019 LP A Good Time, and he has guested on tracks by Meek Mill, J. Cole, Quavo, and others. Through it all, he keeps that unforced good time rolling while singing the praises of the African continent to an increasingly global fanbase.