Wizkid

AfrobeatsSurulere, Lagos StateSince 2011Active

Biography

Wizkid, born Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun on July 16 1990 in Surulere, Lagos State, is one of the biggest and most globally celebrated Nigerian musicians of all time. He began singing in church at the age of eleven and recorded his first album at thirteen under the pseudonym Lil Prinz. He signed to Banky W's Empire Mates Entertainment (EME) and released his debut professional album Superstar in 2011, which contained the breakthrough single Holla at Your Boy that made him a household name across Nigeria within weeks. Wizkid's career trajectory took a decisive international turn with the 2016 Drake collaboration One Dance, which became the first song to accumulate one billion streams on Spotify. He released his masterpiece Made in Lagos in 2020, an album that introduced his sound to a generation of global listeners with a sophisticated, mellow Afrobeats aesthetic that influenced international pop music broadly. The album's single Essence featuring Tems won the Grammy Award for Best Global Music Performance in 2023, making Wizkid one of the few African artists to win a Grammy. Wizkid has collaborated with Beyoncé, Drake, Ed Sheeran, Skepta, and Chris Brown among many others, and has performed sold-out concerts at the O2 Arena in London and Madison Square Garden in New York. He founded the Starboy Entertainment label and continues to release music that commands enormous global audiences. He has received multiple BET Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards, and the MOBO Award for Best African Music Act. He is universally regarded as one of the primary architects of Afrobeats' global dominance.