‘A Timeless Night with Davido’ Show Review: The King Of Afrobeats Is Back

Album rating: 3/5

Concert Rating: 4/5

Davido released Timeless on the 31^{st of} March, and it quickly reached #1 on Apple Music UK & US Charts – the highest charting for a Nigerian artist in history! He solidified himself with tracks such as ‘If’ and ‘Fall’. Following his success, Davido experienced a recent tragedy last year when his son passed away and he took a long social media hiatus. Davido has perfected the talent of singing about heartbreak & pain and still making it sound like an uplifting song you can dance to, symbolic of how these experiences have shaped Davido, and how he has managed to come out the other side. ‘A Timeless Night with Davido’  was a one-off show in London’s iconic venue KOKO, which sold out in minutes, but if you didn’t manage to secure a ticket get the inside scoop here…

At just after 9 pm, Davido took to the stage with The Compozers, with a simple but effective stage production. This performance didn’t need many props and the lack of gimmicks made it feel more intimate, like a night with Davido & his friends. Playing through some of his classics, the Nigerian-born singer performed fan favourites such as ‘Fall’, and ‘Risky’, mixed in with some of his new tracks from Timeless. The Compozers & Davido was a good combination that made the performances livelier and ignite KOKO.

The intro to Timeless, ‘Over dem’ refers to the David & Goliath story, where a young boy slew the giant Goliath, representing how Davido has slaughtered his demons. ‘If dem wan turn Goliath I be David for life.’ It’s a good introduction to the rest of the album as it shows the message behind Timeless, which is to flaunt and flex your blessings, but always count them and be grateful.

‘U (JUJU)’ got the crowd vibing as we’ve seen Skepta glide on an afrobeat track before when featuring on Wizkid’s ‘Ojuelegba’ and ‘Energy.’ This track stamps how versatile Skepta is, despite his fast & blunt flow usually well suited for a grime beat, his deep and commanding voice was a nice contrast against Davido’s and the smooth & mellow beat. Skepta, who also comes from Nigeria made sure to include the culture rapping ‘I’m so tapped, that to be honest when you are whipping the egusi like that, you already know agaracha must come back’ which the crowd appreciated.

The crowd also loved ‘Kante’, an uplifting & romantic track. The restrained sax, the melodic piano notes, and the use of the heavy bass give this song a tropical vibe. Fave features, who has been compared to Tems. Another crowd favourite was ‘No Competition’ With Asake, it only makes sense that Davido would feature Asake on Timeless as he is currently trending internationally & Asake creates a refreshing sound by fusing the dynamic tempo and passion of highlife with the percussion and electronic vibrations of electronic dance music.

Usually, artists tend to use their most popular hit as their encore performance but leaving ‘Unavailable’ for last was a good tactic as this track stayed in everybody’s head after, so it made a lasting impact. ‘Unavailable’, features Musa Keys who has a unique, authentic, and melodic sound that elevated the track. Produced by Magicsticks, who also produced a lot of other tracks on the album and is behind hits such as ‘Sungba’ and ‘Organise’ used a heavy bass for this pristine production which gives this track the replay factor. Davido brought his friends on stage, and they all danced to this at the end, wrapping up the concert on a good, infectious note. He also just dropped visuals for ‘Unavailable’, an authentic African music video, showcasing the culture and claiming that the king of Afrobeats is back so this is due to be the song of the summer.

This concert had an electric atmosphere right from the outset and because of his large fanbase, the crowd made it 10x better. The Compozers were a great addition as their melodic & soothing instruments went well with Davido’s vocals and complimented each other on stage nicely, without the band being too much of a distraction and it created a seamless balance. Even though all the performances were great Timeless itself had a lot of ‘safe’ tracks, meaning that some performances felt slightly repetitive. It was still a solid concert and project from Davido, with a couple of good songs I know will go off in the summer. I don’t think any individual was left disappointed as he sang fan favourites but also treated us to his new singles, with the simple stage production making it feel like an intimate affair.