When Seyi Vibez parted ways with Dapper Music after a successful half-decade partnership, he teamed up with global music powerhouse EMPIRE and he released the song ‘Pressure’ to kick off this new era in his career. While the song marked the inception of another chapter in his journey, his predominant use of the English language, a complete shift from the pulsating Apala/Fuji fusion and jabbing flows that shaped his previous releases, suggested an ambition to reach new listeners with the help of a label that has assisted Nigerian pop stars like Fireboy, Asake, and BNXN in achieving the same.
In 2025, when he released the album ‘Fuji Moto,’ the easy pop records ‘How Are You,’ ‘Universe’, ‘Ama,’ and the French Montana-assisted ‘Pressure’ were testaments to concerted efforts to ease Western listeners into his sound. Like other Nigerian pop stars who have courted attention in Europe and America, he made a musical trade-off that resulted in sacrificing his core artistic identity of indigenous sonic exploration and street engagement for songs that could make him more relatable in rooms in London, Paris, and New York.
On his latest album ‘Swaguu,’ executive produced by Burna Boy, the indefatigable Seyi Vibez doubles down on his international ambition, which stands in stark contrast to his artistic identity. Across the Atlantic, he attempts to curate a new identity. He adopts edgy fashion to be cooler; he embraces mid-tempo, swingy production, writes more in English and makes a project that can be premiered in London and Paris. The intentions are perhaps clear, yet the output of this international ambition leaves a gap.
His desire to adopt more refined melodies accounts for songs like ‘Volume’ and ‘Diamond’, where his writing is weak and delivery is belaboured. The limitations of his melodies and the obvious inability to colourfully share his thoughts in English with the effectiveness he does in Yoruba are exposed in ‘Melanin’, where the piercing flows that shaped such records in his previous works were clipped to accommodate more singing. Seyi Vibez is simply not a good singer. His melodies, when accentuated and shaped around Fuji/Apala vocals, find identity. His stinging pop rap flows and street-shaped lyricism find structure in suitable Afropop productions. When stripped of this identity and forced to sing predominantly in English on Western-styled pop production, the product is a weak song like ‘Back 2 U’, where nothing about it flatters the artist.