Wearing a beige suit and red tie, Asake waltzed onto the stage, the sound of his hit song ‘Why Love’ emanating from the 33-person orchestra flanking him. That historic night at Brooklyn’s King Theatre last year, Asake’s Red Bull Symphonic show would find him performing orchestral renditions of some of his biggest hits and trotting out stars like Wizkid, Tiakola, Central Cee, Gunna & Fridayy. By the middle of the show, however, the 31-year-old Afrobeats hegemon would take a detour from this thumping procession of hit songs, performing a mellow, introspective unreleased record. On Friday, the 20th of March, after five months of teasing the record during his many performances around the world, Asake finally released the single. Its title? ‘Worship.’

What’s especially remarkable about ‘Worship’ is how aptly it telegraphs Asake’s ascendancy. After years of relentless grind, of trudging ahead without the slightest hint of what the future held, of having to grapple with a fusillade of setbacks, he finds himself at the zenith of African music, having held the entire continent, and beyond, spellbound with three undeniable albums. “Alhamdulillah, praise be to God no matter your condition,” he offers in the song’s overture, as the production—replete with poignant keys and flamboyant horns—evokes the feeling of a church worship session.

In 2020, Asake, who had by then spent years chasing stardom, had his fresh brush with fame. ‘Mr Money’, a propulsive single he released that year, galvanised audiences in Nigeria, many of whom had been unnerved by the tightening lockdown restrictions and the attendant vagaries of the pandemic. TikTok and Instagram teemed with jaunty choreography by fans enthralled by its earworm melodies and skittering drums. But soon after, the song’s momentum would taper off precipitously, and he’d struggle without success for years to score another hit song. 

“Life humbled me,” he says of the incident in a recent interview with Nigerian YouTuber Korty EO. “Imagine God gives you a taste of something, and then takes it away. That’s what happened in 2020.” Two years later, however, the tide would turn when he signed to YBNL, a label owned by legendary Nigerian musician Olamide. Following his signing, Asake would display an unprecedented level of dominance in the industry, earning him sobriquets like "landlord," a cheeky allusion to his dominance on charts worldwide. 

Asake’s interview with Korty EO was released days before ‘Worship’ dropped and has played the crucial role of imbuing the song with a certain diaristic heft. The interview, conducted over five days, finds Asake steeped in a level of wealth and stardom that feels redolent of a different era. But even more poignantly, we see him swaddled with love, warmth, and adoration from his family and close circle. Watching the interview and then circling back to the song, in which he offers lyrics such as “You have to trust yourself and wait for results,” will almost certainly leave you feeling like you can take on the world, bet on yourself, and perhaps come out successful. 

The past few days have seen an outpouring of love towards the Mr Money crooner, often expressed in the form of emotion-sodden screeds posted on X. And the appetite for his hopefully imminent album M$NEY has never been higher. Last year, he relentlessly teased the project, taking us on a labyrinthine journey flush with countless evolutions of his personal style and a smorgasbord of snippets. Nonetheless, the project never materialized. What we got instead was ‘Real,’ a four-track collaborative project with Wizkid. But even that felt like a peace offering of sorts, something to hold on to before the main banquet arrives. Fans across Africa and the diaspora are waiting with bated breath. But with ‘Worship’ finally out, it appears that we’ve officially ventured into Asake’s M$NEY era.