Album Review: Skales is NOT the ‘Man of the Year'

By ‘Dayo Showemimo

Album – ‘Man Of The Year’

Artiste – Skales

Record Label – Baseline Records

Featured Artistes: Burna Boy, Davido, Reekado Banks, Olamide, Victoria Kimani, Ice Prince, Phyno, Kenny Wonder, Attitude, Capital FEMI and Rotimi.

Producers: Jay Pizzle, Spellz, Orbeat, Dj Coublon, Uhuru, Echo, Bobby Combz, Ganja Beatz, Drey Beatz and TK on the beat.

Year – 2015

When it takes you over 10 years to drop your debut album (Skales started rapping in 2000, met Jesse Jagz in 2008, relocated to Lagos to sign with E.M.E in 2009), fans, friends and haters expect nothing short of perfection and some magic from you.

Already, Baseline Music act, Skales would go down in history as one African act with an amazing come-back story. With so much expected from Skales, he’s proven critics wrong on a couple of occasions and the onus was on him to once again prove his mettle on his first ever album, Man of the year.

The album

Born Raoul John Njeng-Njeng, Skales came into this album project with only one mission and that is to prove that he’s not a ‘flash in the pan’.

The album is a 20-track body of work featuring 11 other acts and 10 producers. The albums kicks off with an amazing intro by Cool FM OAP, Do2dtun which immediately sets you in the mood that you are about to listen to a great album.

The album continues with a steady progression and ascension in sound quality alternating between different genres of music that shows impressive diversity without losing any dose of creativity.

Started as a rapper, now a singer…

Obviously Skales started his career as a rapper, now he’s a singer which is clearly working wonders for him. On this album, he did try to experiment with other genres like Rap, Pop, RnB and even House Music, but clearly his strength lies in singing.

No love from E.M.E…

It was clearly a mission impossible to get Wizkid on this album, but it’s a little shocking to realise that no E.M.E act – Banky W, Niyola and Shaydee contributed to this album, at least in terms of featuring on it.

And Baseline acts too…

There’s no law that says you have to feature your label mates on your album, but it only goes to show love, unity and harmony if your label mates hop on your album. The fact that Skales’ label mates – Aramide and Saeon didn’t make this album doesn’t send the right signal. Not even the in-house producer, Mr Chiddo made the album!

Stand-out songs…

In the community of renowned music pundits, if an album of 20 tracks has just 4 excellent songs, then it’s a good album. Skales’ ‘Man of the year’ album surely has a lot of good songs. Some of the stand-out songs that’ll pick up in the coming weeks include…  Track 3 – ‘Lo Le’, Track 4 ‘Always’ featuring Davido, Track 6 – ‘Ijo Ayo’ featuring Olamide and of course, I Am For Real and Happy.

Shot at Wizkid?

Skales has repeatedly said he’s only focused on making good music, which he’s obviously doing. However, the recent social media rant/beef between Wizkid and Skales is still very fresh in our minds and Skales might have fired a shot at Wizkid in his new album. In Track 13 ‘Fa Ra We Mi’ featuring Kenny Wonder, Skales dropped this line… ‘I’m going crazy/social media on my ass/had an issue with an EX and people won’t let it pass.’

Well, Wizkid is clearly an ex-Label mate and since their issue on social media in March, people really haven’t let go of it.

Conclusion

Beyond any reasonable doubt, Skales has delivered on this album but he shouldn’t have called it Man of the Year. Apart from the fact that MOTY is already associated with Phyno; Skales could have easily titled it ‘Album of the Year’ and it will stand as a title and a statement of fact.

So, it’s safe to conclude that Skales was been modest with his MOTY title… This album is a sure contender for the ‘Album of the Year’ crown.

Rating: 3.5/5