In the highly competitive music landscape in Nigeria, it is a given that artistes have to continually evolve and be on their A-game. One bad moment, one slip or a run of poor singles could literally sweep you off the radar. Believe me; Nigerians have got a very fickle attention span and understandably so.

This could have been something that would have plagued Praiz’ mind, Yes, we knew he was talented. Without talent, he couldn’t have become first-runner up on Project Fame, which incidentally Iyanya won. Yes, we knew he was good-looking but countless others were. Yes, we knew he was capable of releasing world-class singles and do superb covers of international artistes’ songs. We know all this, He probably did too but something was missing.
Finding the right blend, the perfect mix was what was missing.

The temptation must have been there to go the ‘Iyanya Way’ and switch up his identity to appeal to the mass commercial audience. But then came the masterstroke, Praiz decided to have a musical menege-a-trois, he decided to go all musically schizophrenic on us, presenting us with a double album, both showcasing the talent we knew he undoubtedly had.

On the Rich & Famous album, Praiz has been able to cater to diverse audience. On Rich which is his comfort zone, tracks like If I Fall, A Woman’s Need, Heartbeat make sure his niche audience are satisfied. On Famous is where Praiz really experimented thrilling the commercial audience with: Sisi featuring Wizkid, Mercy, For You.
After this effort, words like ‘Dynamic’ and ‘Versatile’ are now used to describe Praiz. Rather than boxing his talent into a corner, Praiz has shown that the perfect formula for survival in the Nigerian music industry is to blow the f**king box up! Best believe that.

Extracted from Mystreetz Magazine( Cynthia Morgan’s Edition)

Words by Akin ‘Nizzle’ Solanke