Duncan Mighty once again plays a huge role in Davido’s ‘Fall
This isn’t the first time Davido is drawing inspiration from the Port Harcourt legend.
When Davido dropped the song ‘If’, he was in an unfamiliar place in his career. The DMW chief was for the first time in his short career staring at the charts, and not seeing his name in conversations about the best song in the country.
His troubled deal with Sony Music had not only robbed him of his ability to create local tunes, it had taken his happiness, upset the balance of his art, and turned him into a perpetual complainer on Snapchat.
“First of all, I didn’t even want to take the deal because I didn’t need it. I was doing tours all over Africa with 50,000 to 80,000, people so it was like why am I signing the deal?” He told Guardian.
“They tried to fix me up with a producer and I decided to come home, but I’m still signed to them, it’s going good. They have realized how much potential is here because even when I am all over the world it is my African songs that even the oyibo people f*** with.”
Every day was just another opportunity for the man to vent, until he came upon Tekno and got a taste of his successful formula. A renegotiation of his deal with Sony Music meant that he clawed back creative control on the African continent, and he hasn’t looked back.
His first single ‘If’ flew out the blocks with fire, and soon enveloped the continent and beyond. One of the biggest hits of 2017 so far, it has received cosigns from some of the most influential entertainers on the planet, R.Kelly has recorded a version, with talks of an official collaboration.
It’s like second life for Davido, and he is taking it with both hands. ‘If’ and its buzz will not last forever, and Davido, an astute thinker and strategic executioner is back with another new single, ‘Fall’.
I got an advanced listening of the single produced by Kiddominant, which has been made public today with a video by DAPS. And to advance, Davido took all of the elements of ‘If’, to bring ‘Fall’ into reality.
Take the sound. ‘If’ was created by Tekno, while ‘Fall’ came straight from the house of Kiddominant. But if you passively listen to both songs, the beat break, synths, and cadences are the same. Davido still employs the simplistic measured delivery, and taps into Duncan Mighty for inspiration. There are parts of the song which come straight from the South-South legend’s ‘Obianuju’.
Check out the chorus on ‘Obianuju’ vs ‘Fall’
“Money fall on you (Because everything, na you), Banana fall on you (everything I do, na you)…”
This isn’t the first time Davido is drawing inspiration from the Port Harcourt legend. On his ‘If’ single, the singer also modelled his delivery after Wene Mighty, and was real enough to credit the source of his inspiration. He later worked on some new music with Duncan Mighty. That collaboration will be released in the future.
The video for ‘Fall’ still maintains some of the elements from ‘If’. Where the lead vixen in the previous video was Nqobile Danseur, this visual from DAPS brings in three primary women to bring the record to life. There’s still dancing, expensive promises, shiny outfits, and of course some drama thrown in for effect.
Davido has found a formula that works, and like all shrewd businessmen in the music industry, you don’t abandon a winning strategy. You ride it like a wave, until it stands on its last legs, before you switch it up for another wave.
‘Fall’ is a certified hit song on arrival. And it’s all thanks to Kiddominant, Duncan Mighty, and the team around Davido. pulse
