It was raining albums in the Nigerian music industry last year. While the industry giants like Wizkid, Burna Boy, and Adekunle Gold blessed us with new albums adding to their catalogue of albums, it was also raining debut albums from the likes of Rema, Omah Lay, Naira Marley, Bella Shmurda, Asake, and others. It is another year again and for an industry with multiple Grammy winners, multiple platinum certifiers, and an Oscar nominee, it is just another day in the office for music in Nigeria. It has been confirmed that the likes of Davido and Adekunle Gold are adding to their album catalogue this year, but there are still established artists in the Nigerian music industry who are yet to release their debut albums.
These are the artists we are highly anticipating their debut albums this year:
Tems
What has Tems not won? Grammys? Check. BET Awards? Check. Billboard Hot 100? Check. Oscar nomination? Check. What else? With two EPs, Tems has made herself firm in the industry and she’s one of the artists putting Nigeria on the world scale. And these are only done with her EPs, For Broken Ears and If Orange Was A Place. As promised in a tweet last year, We should get an album from Tems this year, and that would be her debut album since she started her music career.
Ruger
Ruger has called himself the king of solo hits, and it’s true. From Girlfriend to Dior to Asiwaju, all these songs trended at number 1 in Nigeria in their respective times. He is unarguably one of the young talents doing his part for music in Nigeria. So far, Ruger has only dropped two EPs and a deluxe of EP; Pandemic, The Second Wave and The Second Wave Deluxe. He has also promised us his debut album this year and we can’t wait to listen to what Ruger is cooking.
Zinoleesky
Someone said Grit and Lost is a complete body of work, we agree. But have you listened to Zino’s first EP, Chrome? Zinoleesky’s pen game is different. He’s revealed that he’s working on his debut album which would most likely be dropped this year. We can’t wait to hear what Zino has for us.’
BNXN fka BUJU
BNXN has not made any official note about whether he’s working on his debut album or not but with the previous strategy used by Bella Shmurda, Omah Lay and others, it is not far-reaching to assume BNXN is dropping his album this year after delivering two EPs. His previous EPs, Sorry, I’m Late and Bad Since ’97 received warm receptions and BNXN knows that anything he drops, Nigerians are definitely going to listen to it. Whether he drops the album this year or not, allow us to assume in peace.
