Yemi Alade is one of the most distinct and prominent music artistes in Nigeria and out of Africa. From Ondo state, Nigeria, Yemi Alade is regarded as one of the most successful Nigerian artistes today. With her work ethic and distinct sound, Yemi Alade has garnered a cult following of fans across the world.
In 2013, Yemi Alade dropped her career-defining single, Johnny., produced by Selebobo. The playful song about a woman who has caught her lover in an affair launched Alade’s career to the limelight. Johnny was such a monster hit in several countries across Africa that she released a French version of the song.
In 2018, she was named one of Forbes Africa 30 under 30 individuals making waves in their industries across the continent. She has won the BET, MTV African Music Award and MOBO and several other awards.
She also has four albums in her arsenal – King of Queens, Mama Africa, Black Magic and most recently, Woman of Steel and has scored several major international collaborations in the course of her career.
Woman of Steel, her fourth studio album featured four-time Grammy Awards winner, Angelique Kidjo on Shekere and American rapper, Rick Ross was featured on Oh My Gosh.
Yemi Alade was featured on two songs from Beyonce’s Lion King: The Gift album. Don’t Jealous Me, in collaboration with Mr Eazi and Tekno and My Power, which had Beyonce, Busiswa and Moonchild Sanelly. The singer also made an appearance on Beyonce’s recently released visual album for the Lion King:The Gift album, Black Is King.
Yemi Alade also features on ‘The Queens of Base’, a specially curated playlist featuring exceptional black female artistes, who have gained renown through their talent, hard work and excellence, to be broadcast on MTV Base.
Here are a couple of things you might not know about Yemi Alade.
She’s a talent show winner
In 2009, Yemi Alade emerged winner of the Peak Talent Show, which marked the beginning of her career as an artist. She won a One million Naira cash prize and shortly after released her radio hit, Fimisile, which featured elDee the Don.
A graduate of Geography
Yemi Alade is a graduate of Geography from the University of Lagos. She was 300 level when she won the peak talent show. It took another four years for her to release Johnny, the single that will come to define her career. In an interview with Fader, she explains her experience between the four years of winning the Peak talent show and releasing Johnny, she says, ‘Four years is a very long time, I tell you! I was faced with so many obstacles that I reached the point where I wanted to stop music and use my degree to get a job so I could finally sustain myself and have a life.’
A multilingual artiste
She is multilingual – born to James Alade, a retired policeman from Ondo state and Helen Uzoma from Abia state, Alade can speak both the Yoruba and Igbo languages. She can also speak French, Swahili and Portuguese, This multilingual skill serves her pretty well in reaching a global audience, especially pan Africa.
She recorded a Swahili version of Na Gode, one of the singles off her Mama Africa album, for her East African fans. Na Gode is Thank You in the Hausa language, and the song was a mixture of the three major languages in Nigeria, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba.
Record breaker
She was the first female African artiste to hit one million subscribers on Youtube, and the first female African pop artiste to cross the one hundred million views ballpark on Youtube, for her single Johnny. The video now has over one hundred and twenty million views on Youtube. Yemi Alade’s Johnny has been a gift that keeps giving to the artist. Johnny didn’t almost make it out though.
Speaking in an interview she highlighted the process of making the mega hit. ‘At the time, I had no idea that Johnny was my numero uno hit that I was writing. The lyrics just came to myself and Selebobo when we were trying to get into the mood of the song: one line came out, then another, like, Continue, continue! I kept laughing. When you read the lyrics they’re very funny, it’s about a cheating lover in an almost friendly way. In fact, the song wasn’t officially released — it leaked. If it hadn’t, I could have just kept the song, like, Oh, no one’s going to like this. It was very different from anything I’d recorded so far.’
Grammy consideration
In 2019, her fourth studio album, Woman of Steel was considered for a Grammy award in the Best World Music Album category. Though the album did not get nominated, consideration by the Grammy’s is a feather in Alade’s already well decorated hat.
Fashion designer
Yemi Alade added fashion designer to her list of titles in 2016 when she debuted her clothing line, House of Tangerine, at the grand finale of the Africa Fashion Week Nigeria. The collection which included fun, colourful and comfortable, expressed the singer’s unique style, a combination of African prints and Western-style.
Philanthropist
The artiste has also been involved in several philanthropic and humanitarian acts. Most recently, she joined the league of international artists performing at the ‘Global Goal: Unite For Our Future – The Concert’, to raise donations for testing, treatments, and vaccines, to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
She is also a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) advocate, she joined voices with the organization, to plead the cause of several thousands of people affected by the coronavirus across Africa. In 2016, she was awarded a UN Ambassador for Peace awards.
Catch “Queens of Base” every Saturday in August by 4pm WAT on MTV Base, Channel 322 DStv and Channel 72 on GOtv.