Is Kiss Daniel The Next Global Star After 2face And Wizkid?

Has it ever occurred to you that Kiss Daniel could be the successor to Wizkid? Have you ever looked in the direction of new generation music stars and considered Kiss Daniel to be the next in line to advance the frontier of Nigerian music in the coming years? Is it possible that the title of Kiss Daniel’s album,“New Era,” is a prophecy?

These were the thoughts that ran through my mind after a friend said during one of our discussions that, “Kiss Daniel is not an artiste for now but one for the future. He reminds me of the young 2face and of Wizkid during his early years.” My friend, who has watched how events unfold and the trends of the industry for many years, said “you think about another artiste who is versatile enough to try new music styles and still consistently put out hit records like Weezy, and the first name that comes to mind is Kiss Daniel.”

Indeed, while a lot of breakout stars of the last two to three years, rely so much on industry trends to create their music, Kiss Daniel has consistently made hit records by trusting in his own creative instincts, that’s why you hardly ever find a Kiss Daniel song as a sample of another song in the industry. Take his recently released ‘Yeba’ song for instance, the song is reminiscent of the high life tunes from the 90’s. The song hit the market at a time when most of the popular songs were starting to sound alike but Kiss bravely stepped out of the box and went for something different, same way Wizkid has repeatedly done over the years to set new industry trends.

This same trend-setting trait played to the advantage of 2face in the early 2000s, when he so beautifully poured out his hearts in many of his songs, that it got the international community to pick up interest in Nigerian music (and in African music by extension). 2face’s Grace To Grace album produced by OJB Jezrel and the song, African Queen particularly got the early peep through the door leading to the international market and 2face stayed relevant in the industry by releasing series of timeless music.

Amongst his peers, 2face stood out for his versatility at experimenting with different sounds ranging from Reggae to RnB to Soul music and a lot of other genres; making hit records out of each of these distinct sounds. His African Queen sounds totally different from Enter The Place or Only Me or 4 Instance but they all went on to become fans’ favourite.

2face became the artiste who could work on unpopular sounds and still produce hit songs out of them, that got him the respect of fans in and out of Africa.