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Davido: How OBO has remixed ‘FIA’ twice, but given the songs away to other people

Davido

Davido has been remixing ‘FIA’, with help from producer Fresh VDM of course. But he isn't releasing them with his chest.

“Shuku Shaker, Aya Shoemaker”

You would understand the magnitude of that line when you are in a club and the DJ stops the record just at that spot to urge you to participate and scream out your lungs. That’s how much Davido’s ‘FIA’ became a huge record.

It isn’t just a personal story mined from the depths of pain and loss, it’s a mega, super hit record which probably dominated the country better than his earlier one ‘If’. There’s nowhere in this country where there is a celebration, and you won’t find people telling Caroline to “save your drama” and exclude them from her soap opera.

As a follow-up to the record, we had an interview with the producer, Fresh VDM, who has seen his stock rise considerably since scoring that hit record. And he did confirm that prior to the release of ‘FIA’, they had recorded a few other songs, which he thought would become hits. But they weren’t released.

“There was another record I had placed my bet on would be the banger earlier scheduled for a December release but then we make FIA and that was it. It just had to be released in November," he said.

Well, those songs might not have come out, but Davido sure has been remixing ‘FIA’, with help from Fresh VDM of course. While ‘FIA’ marks the pinnacle of his working relationship with OBO, Fresh has been recording with Davido, and creating new records with his signature production style. Two of those records have been released in January alone. But interestingly, none of them has belonged to Davido himself. He’s been giving it away to other people. Weird, isn’t it?

‘Ada’ – DJ E-Cool ft Davido

 

The first remix of ‘FIA’ came under the banner of DJ E-Cool. It is titled ‘Ada’. The disc jockey is a close friend of Davido and his personal DJ. You can see him on stages with Davido, supplying the music while OBO does the rest to turn up the crowd. E-Cool is also a nice guy, and a genuine member of the ’30 Billion Gang’. He tours with Davido, hosts his shows, and does backup sometimes, when King Spesh is absent.

On his song ‘Ada’, Davido takes over proceedings with the same energy and similar drum breaks from ‘FIA’. The theme stays consistently love-based, as Davido becomes a cheating lover, apologizing for his bad behaviour. Within the first two sentences, he drops the word ‘Fire’, which rhymes with ‘FIA’, and goes on to replicate his ‘FIA’ shots at Caroline Danjuma. While the former record has her as a drama queen with a ‘soap opera’ ambitions, this time, he takes a lower shot calling her a ‘gold digger’.

“What of Carolina, that one na gold digger, chai, so me I no do again…,” he sings on the record.

‘Doe’ – Larry Gaaga ft Davido

 

This one is relatively new at the time of this report, so, it might be your first time of listening to the record or viewing the visual.

Remember Larry Gaaga’? The bearded guy whose dance inspired 2face Idibia’s 2017 record ‘Gaga Shuffle’. (For more on that story click here.) Well, he’s back this time, with the second remix of Davido’s ‘FIA’. Of course Fresh VDM provides the beat, layering a familiar sound for Davido to work his magic. The difference here is that there’s an ominous, dark chant and synth at the background, but breaks from ‘FIA’ are sampled too.

This time, Davido goes closer to the source material. He sings about a girl who is chasing him for his money, and refusing him acess to her unless he drops the ‘doe’. It’s pretty exciting stuff, with a video from Clarence Peters showing pretty women, drinking juices, walking past, sucking on lollipops and doing….random stuff. You can watch the video below.

“Okay, check am, I for wire for you, cause you say make I wire, but you only whine for the doe…” he sings. Thank heavens Caroline Danjuma isn’t on this one. She’s earned a break.

 

What Davido is doing isn’t strange. In fact, it’s pretty common practice in music. If an artist gets inspired, and it generates such a reaction as ‘FIA’ did, then they are under obligation to utilise that formula until its stops working. Runtown’s done it, Tekno has done it, heck, the entire 2017 Nigerian music’s addiction to ‘Pon Pon’ was as a result of this.

What this does for Fresh VDM is that he adds to his resume, exploring his sound to create more records. He’s still creating hits for Davido, but it’s just the marketing that is different. Everybody wins in the en. The fans have new music to vibe to, Davido continues to score hits, Fresh enjoys more prominence,  DJ E-Cool and Larry Gaaga get hit songs, and the life of ‘FIA’ is extended.

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