There are only 3 superb male vocalists in the Nigerian music sphere. They are namely:
Djinee, Wande Coal, Faze
If you want to extend the list then we might add, Ric Hassani, Dare Art Alade and Timi Dakolo, all of which are great vocalists.
But I picked the 3 for a number of reasons, mainly, their ability to maximize their vocals.
The first time I heard Djinee sing, and that was on his big song Ego, I instinctively knew that he wasn’t a run-off-the-mill singer.
I thought the young man who was unknown to me then, must have had sufficient musical training, which I later confirmed to be true.
Djinee was a choirboy for a long time and it shows in his music.
Besides his strong, yet, soft emotion-laden voice, he’s one of the few singers that cares to pronounce his words properly while singing. Yes, if you listen carefully you’d catch that.
All things being equal, ‘Ego’ might not have been a hit if it was sang by another person.
I’ll give my reasons.
The beat of the song was a bit away from the usual Nigerian stuff, plus the background acapella accompaniment could’ve been deemed too churchy for mainstream success.
Regardless, we all stopped to listen to that young man’s incredible voice from his first effort – Ego.
I remember all TV stations played the hell out of that song throughout 2006.
While Djinee may not be as huge as he used to be in the mid 2000s, leaving us with beautiful songs Lade and I No Dey Shame, personally I don’t think any singer of present has been able to fill his shoes when it comes to brilliant singing.
The closest in my opinion would be Wande Coal and Faze.
Wande is wonderful just as Faze has always been.
They can both hit all the hard notes, they have expressions in their voices. Faze can whistle like it’s nothing, Wande can croon softly in falsetto and go back to his head voice. They flex their voices like musical instruments.
Timi Dakolo, even though he’s great has always sang the same way since Idols West Africa. Just his big voice.
And that’s why I rank the 3 men above as the best VOCALISTS we’ve ever had.
Male singers who can do a lot of things with their vocal pipes are nobody’s mate.
Others try.
