Fave: From SoundCloud to national sensation

From being a regular aspiring artist on SoundCloud to having the No 2 song in the country, the 21-year old’s rise to stardom is inspirational beyond doubt.

The inviting phrase, “My baby bad, my baby good” across social media is undeniably hard to miss. So much that it ranks her latest single as one of the most popular songs in the country. However, as Fave’s audience continues to assemble under the success of ‘Body Riddim’, only a handful of her growing fanbase can recall her early run of multiple singles before the spotlight gleamed.

Sometime in February 2020, before the world got stuck with a deadly pandemic that forced everything to pause. I received a screenshot message from a colleague (who now runs a music distribution platform) of a track titled ‘Dal’ by an artist whose real name I will later find out to be GodsFavour Chidozie. The track's artwork was an illustrated female endowed with mystical valor. The lit eyes and long hair was similar to avatar Korra in her element. As soon as I played the song, I got transported to the lady's realm in which the artwork dwelt, and it was something! Still is.

I became a fan after listening to Dal, a reggae tune centered on love and loss, interlaced with bass beats and a unique sound effect that will cause every head to nod all through. So naturally, this led me to dig for her previous release, ‘M.O.M.M.S’; an Altè-birthed record she translates to “Me or Mask My Sins”.And then it hit me; [Fave is a music genre-bender] her avatar image on Dal may be conveying. Interestingly, her Instagram bio, which was 7k followers at the time, confirmed it.

Her single ‘N.B.U’, produced by Lagos based artist Jinmi Abduls, was a blend of upbeat pop and Afro that soared across playlists and social media during the lockdown. This began opening doors for features that would eventually lead her to appear on two tracks (Want and Pon Pon) on Olamide’s UY Scuti. Throughout her appearances on multiple tracks, Fave manifested a novel warmth in her lyricism, added with an ease with vocal delivery that ultimately won the hearts of more notable artists and a Gen-Z audience hungry for more young female singers following Tems’s ‘Try me’.

While Fave’s feature on Olamide’s Caribbean project was a definite catalyst to her popularity, the fervent fanbase the genre-bending singer had garnered with four spirited singles Dal, M.O.M.M.S, N.B.U, and Beautifully remains unignorable.

Her newest release, Body Riddim, is a fantastic masterpiece to add to her inventory and a trophy for a successful career year. The once SoundCloud artist is now a national sensation. And it’s inspiring to witness, for the few who were present from her genesis, which is still in motion.

The music industry is unpredictable. It promises no secure spot for no one, but seeing how far she’s come, her unique contribution to the rise of Afrobeat, and the management she is signed to, the name FaveSZN won’t be going away anytime soon. It better not.

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Israel Olorunnisola is a freelance creative. When he is not writing about Film, Music, TV or Pop culture he is telling stories on Wattpad.

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