Every Friday in Nigeria’s music scene, the streaming platforms fill up again. New music drops, the conversations restart, and somehow, everyone has a take before the weekend is out. May was no different. If anything, it was fuller than usual, a month where the scene reminded you that it has no intention of slowing down. Between collaborative projects, long-awaited solo albums, and a deluxe that turned into its own event, there was a lot to absorb. Out of everything that passed through our ears this month, these are the records that we couldn’t get enough of this month of May.
1. Blaqbonez ft. Asake — Chanel
The first thought that drops when you press play on ‘Chanel’ is simple and immediate: Blaqbonez is back. Not in the cautious, feel-it-out kind of way. Back in the way that matters, which is that the song hits, and it hits in the specific, communal way that Nigerian music fans require before they agree to give a record their loyalty.
For a stretch of time, Blaqbonez had been making music that his core audience received warmly but that struggled to plant itself into the wider mainstream consciousness. ‘Chanel’ is the record that changes that conversation. Built around sleek mid-tempo production, glossy synth textures, and a crisp bassline that gives both artists ample room to move, the song carries a polished atmosphere that feels fashionable without working too hard at it. Blaqbonez arrives with his signature wit and animated delivery intact, while Asake brings his unmistakable Fuji-infused vocal texture, adding a warmth and melodic intensity that elevates the collaboration beyond a standard feature exchange.
There will always be people who attribute a hit’s success more to the feature than the lead, and ‘Chanel’ has had its share of that conversation. But a song does not hold the number one spot on Spotify Nigeria, accumulating hundreds of thousands of streams per week, because of one voice. This is Blaqbonez’s record, and it is a very good one. It sounds like a victory, and it should be received as one.
2. BNXN ft. Sarz — Back Outside
Off the collaborative project ‘The Game Needs Us’, ‘Back Outside’ might be the most immediately satisfying thing either BNXN or Sarz has released in recent memory. That is not a small claim, given what both men have done separately. But something about this particular pairing, on this particular track, produces a chemistry that justifies the project’s title in the most literal sense: yes, the game needed them, and yes, they showed up.
The song opens with a childlike, buoyant rhythm before easing into the raspy, bluesy depths that define BNXN’s voice at its most relaxed. Its catchy chorus, sung in Bambara, carries the spirit of a classic interpolation without feeling borrowed. Sarz’s production is in full bloom here, merging African percussion with textured synths in a way that is simultaneously easy on the ears and technically impressive. ‘The Game Needs Us’ as a full project is a tightly constructed EP with zero filler across its five tracks, but ‘Back Outside’ is the one that stuck to the ribs. It debuted at number one on Apple Music Nigeria and spent weeks there for a reason.
This is the kind of record that reminds you why Sarz’s collaborative instincts, sharpened across projects with WurlD, Lojay, and now BNXN, remain some of the most reliable in the industry. Easy on the ears and squarely a favourite across demographics, ‘Back Outside’ is May listening that holds.
3. Efe Oraka — Turnup444me
Off her ‘Eferoghene’ project, ‘Turnup444me’ is as lush and generous as a vocal performance gets. Efe Oraka does not hoard her voice on this track. She spreads it across the instrumental like she owns every inch of it, moving through the song’s texture with an ease that suggests she has always known exactly what she is doing.
The production gives her the kind of bed that allows a vocalist to do exactly this: lean in, pull back, hold a note for a moment longer than necessary, and make it feel deliberate rather than indulgent. ‘Turnup444me’ does not overstay its welcome. It arrives, delivers everything it promised, and exits at the exact right moment, which is precisely what gives it such generous replay value. Short tracks that know their purpose are a discipline, and Efe Oraka is exercising it here with real confidence.
In a month crowded with major-label releases and headline-generating collabs, this track from a quietly consistent artist is the kind of discovery that makes the Friday routine worthwhile.
4. Asake — M$NEY (Album)
Asake’s fourth studio album ‘M$NEY’, released May 1 through his independent imprint Giran Republic, is the kind of project that proves an artist can grow without becoming a stranger to their own sound. Since leaving YBNL Nation earlier in 2025 to launch Giran Republic, Asake has been operating with a new level of creative autonomy, and ‘M$NEY’ is the fullest expression of that freedom yet.
Across its 13 tracks, the album stretches money as a concept beyond its obvious meaning. It becomes gratitude, survival, peace of mind, and a dialogue with faith. The production does significant emotional work here, blending his longtime collaborator Magicsticks’ signature Neo-Fuji sound with broader international textures courtesy of DJ Snake on ‘Worship’, and Kabza De Small on ‘Asambe’, which shifts the project briefly into amapiano territory without losing the thread. The album opens not with Asake’s voice at all, but with a choir singing in isiZulu, an introduction that signals the reflective and spiritual register this project is operating in.
What did not change despite his evolution is his cultural representation. Yoruba storytelling, Fuji rhythms, street-inflected lyricism: all of it persists. Asake continues to be an artist who moves forward without cutting the roots loose, and ‘M$NEY’ is a compelling argument that those two things do not have to be in conflict.
5. Johnny Drille — Before The Morning Light (Album)
We had what can only be described as an unhealthy relationship with ‘Before The Morning Light’ from the moment it arrived. Five years is a long time to wait for a second album, but Johnny Drille has never been an artist who moves by the industry’s clock. He moves by his own, and this album, dropped May 15 via Mavin Records, is what that patience produces.
The 14-track project is a sophomore outing that experiments with Afropop elements while holding onto the alté-inflected, folk-and-soul sensibility that made Drille one of the more singular voices in Nigerian music. His sonic malleability is the defining feature of the album: on opener ‘In Time’ with the legendary Beninese icon Angelique Kidjo, he moves into a space of cross-generational cultural dialogue, blending R&B and soul with traditional African percussion. On ‘Chokehold’ with Canadian-Jamaican singer Aqyila, he is tender and precise, reverential of a lover’s hold. On ‘Colorado’ with Ayra Starr and Young Jonn, the mood lifts entirely.
What this album offers that the current mainstream rarely prioritises is balance. In a scene where shallow lyrics and heavy instrumentals have become the new normal, Johnny Drille is doing the opposite: the writing is careful, the production is warm, and the emotional intelligence running through every track is evident. He has never been interested in chasing the algorithm, and ‘Before The Morning Light’ is the fullest, most confident version of that conviction.
6. Adekunle Gold — Fuji Xtra (Deluxe Album)
Seven months after releasing his sixth studio album ‘Fuji’, Adekunle Gold decided the conversation was not finished. ‘Fuji Xtra’, dropped May 8, is the deluxe expansion of that project, a five-track addition that brings the full tracklist to 20 songs and adds a new dimension to an album that was already doing important cultural work.
What the Xtra brings is spiciness, in every sense. The standout is ‘Formation’, which marks the first ever recorded collaboration between Adekunle Gold and Olamide, two artists whose careers have long run a shared trajectory without ever formally meeting on record. Its arrival here feels historic in the low-key way that genuine artistic moments tend to be. ‘Blue Fire’ featuring his wife Simi and the percussive ‘Shake Shake’ with TML Vibez round out an expansion that does not feel like padding but like chapters that genuinely belonged.
Adekunle Gold has described this entire ‘Fuji’ era as an attempt to document and pass on what he calls the sound of Lagos, a city where Fuji music is a constant, living presence rather than a relic. ‘Fuji Xtra’ leans even harder into that thesis, blending the percussive traditions of Fuji and Apala with contemporary Afrobeats energy in a way that earns him something beyond the title of pop star. This is the work of a cultural archivist who also happens to make very good songs. In May, it landed exactly the way it was meant to.
7. G4ZI ft Kizz Daniel – Energy
Kizz Daniel is one of those artists for whom the word effortless has been so frequently applied that it risks losing its meaning. But it keeps fitting because it keeps being accurate.
‘Energy’, produced by Suppabeat, is the kind of work that knows exactly when to hold back. Crisp percussion, layered synths, a buoyant and bright instrumental palette that sits beneath both vocals without crowding either of them out.
G4ZI opens the track with a confident, smooth delivery, his voice nimble and assured across the beat as he sets the record’s thematic tone. Then Kizz Daniel enters, and the song does what it was always building toward.
Even in a short appearance, he leaves the deepest impression on this record. His vocals are silky, his delivery is sharp, and his harmonies on the chorus add a warmth to the track that feels generous rather than calculated. His ability to glide over a beat while maintaining a laid-back yet commanding presence creates a contrast with G4ZI’s more assertive approach, and the result is a track that is simultaneously cohesive and texturally rich.
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