Shoday is on a hot streak. His 2024 breakout collab with Ayo Maff, Casablanca, set the tone for an electrifying 2025 — one that’s already seen him drop four singles in four months. Just a day after our chat, he released his biggest drop of the year yet: ‘Hey Jago’, featuring Poco Lee and Rahman Jago. The high-energy tribute to the High Fashion founder quickly gained traction, racking up over 4 million Spotify streams in just over a month.
He kept the momentum going with ‘Purr’, his second team-up with Ayo Maff, inspired by a viral trend on TikTok — a platform where Shoday has built a loyal following. “TikTok resonates with what I do the most, so I keep feeding them,” he says of his relationship with the app.
His rise has earned him a seat at bigger tables, including recent studio sessions with Zlatan and Davido. Reflecting on his first encounter with OBO, Shoday calls it a defining moment: “Baddest texted me on Instagram,” he recalls. “The next day, he FaceTimed me — we had a whole conversation. Since then, it’s felt like I’m really doing something right.” In a recent interview, Davido even named Shoday among the new wave of Afrobeats artists to watch.
In our conversation, Shoday opened up about his journey so far — from viral moments and key collaborations to navigating the music industry independently, and now, adjusting to life under a record label.
What headspace are you in at the moment? You’ve dropped a few songs this year: ‘Blessings’, ‘Screaming Beauty’, and ‘Hey Jago’. How are you feeling at the moment?
So, yeah, the year is looking great already. I started with ‘Blessings’. The acceptance of ‘Screaming Beauty’ has been amazing, and the new one with Poco has been going crazy. I feel it is going to be a good year already. So I’m just in a good mood, doing my thing and watching the world catch up.
You have an interesting relationship with TikTok. How did that become a major platform for promoting yourself and your music?
I actually post on all platforms, but TikTok resonates with what I do the most, so I keep feeding them. It’s not like I just woke up and decided I only want to be posting on TikTok. I feel like, as an artist, you need to have your own community somewhere. Some people start from their University. An artist who’s a student of UNILAG might get his biggest streams or a large part of his audience from UNILAG.
It’s the same for social media. For some people, it might be Twitter, Snapchat, or any of the other platforms. I feel people on TikTok like what I’m doing, so I kind of start from there and then export the song to other platforms. So that’s what I’m doing.
Your latest single, ‘Screaming Beauty’, has been used in over 500k videos on TikTok. How did that come about?
I did not even plan that release. Three weeks after I dropped ‘Blessings’, I started the whole ‘Screaming Beauty’ thing. I was just at home one particular day, and I called my manager and said, “we need to record a song today”. So we went to the studio and recorded, and I sent it to the team. They were skeptical about it. I previewed the song on Snapchat, and the reviews were generally positive. Then I posted on TikTok and the song went viral that same day. I think the next day, it had about 20,000 video creations – the biggest I’ve seen in a day.
I didn’t even have to call the team again. They just started making plans, and we dropped the song one week later. I did not expect the song to go this big. I was just doing me, and the world accepted it.
How did the collaboration with Olivetheboy come about?
I am very big on collaboration, and I believe so much in joint efforts. It doesn’t matter whether the artist is big or not; if I like what you’re doing, I’ll work with you. Every one of the artists I’ve worked with is my friend, beyond the music, and I’m a fan of what they are doing. I discovered Olive through his breakout single, ‘Goodsin’
Since then, I’ve been part of his journey, and I knew he was a good guy. For screaming beauty, I felt the song would perform well in Ghana because it has a Ghana-type beat. I asked my management who we could get from Ghana. Because we had to plan the whole release in three or four days, we needed somebody who could easily deliver. I suggested Olivetheboy, we reached out, and he sent back his verse the second day. He’s a good guy. Great guy
Speaking about collaborations, how did ‘Casablanca’ with Ayo Maff come about?
Yeah, that song was actually planned. We had time to plan most parts of the release. I recorded the full song, but I did not put in the second verse. I sent the song to my manager, and he said,
“We need an extra verse on this song”. Then he suggested Ayo Maff. I sent the song to him and he said he liked the song. He recorded his verse and sent it back, and that was how we made ‘Casablanca’.
The artwork for ‘Screaming Beauty’ features female celebrities & influencers. What message were you trying to convey with that?
We were supposed to drop screaming beauty on International Women’s Day, so I thought of celebrating women. I decided to put women who have impacted or played a role in my life on the cover. I have Funke Akindele, Batife, Dayo B, Tiwa Savage and some other women who have contributed, one way or the other, to whatever I’m doing. It’s just me showing love back to them.
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in breaking songs into the mainstream audience?
So, I always tell people that songs have different stages – a viral song, a hit song, and a global hit song. It’s all a process. Your song might be viral on TikTok, but it might not be a hit song generally. It takes a lot of money to transport your song outside TikTok. This was one of the problems I faced when I was independent – getting funds to push my song outside of TikTok. But now I’m signed under a label, and God has been faithful.
I’d love to explore this subject more. From your experience, how do you translate a viral TikTok sound into a successful hit song on DSPs and other platforms?
So this is how it works. TikTok can make your song viral, like practically everybody can sing the song, but it takes good promotion to convert the TikTok virality into full-blown success. TikTok cannot generate streams for you. I tell people, you can have 10 million video creations on TikTok, and it will not convert to streams. So this is how it converts to streams – taking the song beyond TikTok to other platforms, and spending more money on digital ads and stuff like that. That’s what will convert.
When I see a song on TikTok, I will just vibe to it. I may not go ahead to stream the full thing. But when I see the ad pop up on Snapchat or Instagram, it’s different. I know that is an actual song, not just a TikTok sound. A lot of people see songs on TikTok as just sounds for their videos, they don’t know it’s a whole song. You need to find a way to program it into their heads that this is a proper song, not just a TikTok sound.
It took a lot of time for me to decode this thing. Before, it was just vibes, but at the end of the day, the labels that want to put money on your head don’t care about what you have on TikTok. All they care about is your backend, your streams, your numbers.
You sound like you’ve done a lot of these things yourself.
Yes, now. I’ve been doing this thing. I have been testing with different sounds on TikTok. I’ve been experimenting with stuff, and to some extent, I know how these things work. I’m not just vibing, I know what I’m doing to some extent. I’ve been doing this for a while.
How has this knowledge of the game shaped the way you approach your artistry and your business as an artist?
I always tell people that when I want to drop a song, I can differentiate between a ‘streaming song’ and a ‘viral song’. Some songs will go viral but will not convert to streams, although everybody knows the song. When I was recording Casablanca, I knew that this song was a ‘streaming song’. You need to understand this and balance the two. You need to find a way to make that song, which is not a streaming song, get the streams that you need. Whenever I want to drop music, I don’t have it in the back of my mind that it must go viral or it must be a big song. I just drop and watch the audience’s reaction to see if they like it.
If you noticed, I dropped ‘Screaming Beauty’ three or four weeks after ‘Blessing’. It’s not as if ‘Blessing’ was not going, but it wasn’t moving like I planned. It seemed like the audience was not really in tune with the song, so I restrategized and dropped another song. This is where most artists get it wrong. They drop a song, and when it’s not giving them the result they planned, they start feeling some type of way. Everything cannot always work for your good. Life is all about ups and downs, Sometimes it will not work out.
After ‘Casablanca’, I dropped ‘Colorado’. It performed well, in some aspects, and some people actually liked the song but the song did not go as I expected. Every time that happens, I go back to the board to restrategize.
What is the most meaningful piece of music industry advice that you’ve ever received?
I think that was from Small Doctor. He said, “You don’t need to be everywhere. You don’t need to be in everybody’s business. Just keep doing your thing. Don’t be too close to people, and don’t be too far from people.” I think that resonated with me so much, and I felt it. At the end of the day, you can’t be in everybody’s good books. Some people will always see you as a bad person. But don’t be too attached to people, and don’t be too far from people. Just be in the middle. Just be doing your thing and focus on your grind.
What’s the most defining moment in your career? The moment when you just knew that you were onto something in your music journey.
I think when Baddest (Davido) texted me on Instagram. I think the next day, he FaceTimed me and we had a whole conversation. Since that day, it has felt like I was actually doing something right, and the world is watching. Before, I just dropped music without really thinking about anyone watching me. I always tell people that I’m not doing music because I want to satisfy anybody. I’m just doing music because I enjoy it and I’m having fun. So whenever I get a message or co-sign from the industry, it feels like I’m on the right path and I’m doing the right thing. So that particular moment felt so good to me. I felt good.
You mentioned earlier that you just got signed to a record label. How did that come about? And how has it been so far?
As I said earlier, the world is watching. They’ve been watching and been part of my journey for a while, but it was when I dropped Casablanca that they were finally convinced. Since we’ve been working, it has been amazing. Great people. We have the same vision, and they understand my vision and respect my decisions. I think that’s important for every artist. For me, it’s not just signing to a label or signing a deal, you need to sign with people who understand what you’re doing. They understand your sound, they understand your audience, and they are ready to work with whatever you are doing.
When can we expect the Shoday album?
I’m working on a project this year. It might not be an album, but it will be like an album. So it’s like a long playlist. You know, there’s an extended playlist (EP). This one is a longer EP,
I also have a lot of collaborations coming. I have a song with Poco (Hey Jago – out now). I have a song with Adekunle Gold and another one with Spyro. I have another collab I can’t share much about now, but that one is coming too. Everything is coming.
Let’s talk about ‘Hey Jago’. How did that song come about?
I recorded ‘Hey Jago’ last November or October. I sent the song to Poco Lee. He said he liked it, but we didn’t speak about it again for a long time after that. Then we linked up again and recorded another song, titled ‘Sancho’ – Whenever this song drops, it will be over, that song is crazier than anything I’ve ever made. I thought he would drop ‘Sancho’ first, but he called me one particular morning and said, “I’m dropping ‘Hey Jago’”. Then he previewed the song on Instagram, and the reception has been crazy, even on the streets.
We are working on a video because I’m very sure that the song is going to scatter everywhere.
When can we expect the ‘Sancho’ record with Poco Lee?
Okay, let’s do it like this. If you guys take ‘Hey Jago’ to number one, we’ll drop ‘Sancho’.
Maybe we could also get a collaborative EP with Poco Lee?
We actually spoke about it, I think, a few days back, but everything still depends on the acceptance of ‘Hey Jago’. That will give us a clue on what to do next.
Super excited. We can’t wait to see it all play out. What would success look like for you in the music industry?
I tell people, I’m doing music for myself. I’m not doing it for anybody. The last time I said this, people took it the wrong way. Saying, “You’re making music for your fans.” “How do you want your fans to feel?”
Yeah, I have fans and I’m making music for them, but I don’t put that at the top of my mind. If I make music primarily because of my fans, what will happen when they stop being my fans? Problem.
So, I’m doing music primarily for myself. I’m making music because I want to make myself happy. I find solace in it. Making music is enough success for me. Realistically, though, maybe when I sell out the O2 Arena thrice. Maybe that’s when I’ll feel, ”e be like say I don dey go.”
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