6 years ago, Omah Lay brought a new type of emotion to Afrobeats with 'Get Layd'

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into a lockdown. Offices closed, businesses shut down, and humans were forced to remain indoors where they could be protected from a virus that was infecting millions globally.

As the virus forced humans to sit at home, the global music industry swiftly attempted to adjust to the new reality. The result is a soar in digital consumption of music thanks to billions of listeners who had an interminable spare time to engage with both existing and new materials. And the labels and artists stepped up production to cater to the increased demand. TikTok blew up, the stocks of streaming platforms surged dramatically, and there was a constant battle of supremacy on the charts.

In Nigeria, music streaming had only started finding a new audience, and the pandemic sped up the process. Several artists released new materials and rose to fame even before many listeners had a chance to know what they looked like.

Among the artists who rose form obscurty to instant stardom was Omah Lay. This was a 21-year-old young man armed with touchy melodies and the tales of the complexities of life in Nigeria's oil-rich city of Port Harcourt. As Nigerians were stuck at home following the NCDC update and taking Zoom calls, Record Label Keyqaad threw Omah Lay into the mix with the 5-track 'Get Layd' EP, and the result was instant.

His slow-burning contemplations on 'Bad Influence' went viral on TikTok, where many knew the lyrics before knowing the artist behind it. In the interminable loneliness, where people were forced to sit with their thoughts, Omah Lay's stellar writing spoke to listeners.

Here's an unknown artist wielding melodies unlike Nigerian pop music has ever seen and articulating himself with brutal vulnerability and honesty. In laying bare his vices, weaknesses, and desires, Omah Lay encouraged others to embrace theirs. If Nigerian music needed something different and fresh, this was it.

Omah Lay was a kid from Port Harcourt who was conversing with the average youth with melodies that tingle and lyrics that curiously bring you into his world while showing you that his life might not be too different from yours.

In a Nigerian pop music that revolves around women's bodies, materialism, and the desire to enjoy the good life, Omah Lay choose vulnerability. He was yet to make the fortune required to pop expensive bottles, splurge on fast cars, and keep the company of sexy ladies, and he doesn't make music that imagines and aspires to these desires.

What he has felt was the reality of a man shaped by his environment, complex emotions of a young romantic, steamy sexual encounters, and heartbreak. And he sang about them with touchy melodies and honesty that delights and provokes.

On the opener ‘Damn,’ he sings about a love that defies all. He doesn’t fictionalise the subject; he embraces a lover who chooses him even at his lowest. His flows are impeccable, and his writing brilliantly paints vivid pictures. He wears his cultural identity on his sleeves on ‘Lo Lo,’ where he offers a modern pop take on Highlife music. ‘Lololololo,' he sings sweetly as he pledges his love with melodies and backup vocals that mirror the Highlife bands that have shaped the region for decades.

On ‘You,’ he deploys punchy Dancehall flows and mellow pop melodies as he lays out his fault, which he insists doesn’t take away the hopeless romantic in him. And on ‘Ye Ye Ye,’ he sings like a man recording in a studio in the inner city of Port Harcourt, where the pungent smell of marijuana clashes with the smell of flaring gas and the atmosphere is further corrupted by the noise of lovers having ooud, sweaty sex.

With great music and originality, Omah Lay’s ‘Get Layd’ became a huge success. The EP introduced him to an audience who he will keep delighting as he ascends to the summit of Nigerian pop music.

Everything Omah Lay sang about in his debut EP would be broadly interpreted in his subsequent works. The vulnerability, honesty, desires, and originality are recurring themes in his acclaimed discography. In 2020, he brought a different kind of emotion to Afrobeats, and six years later, no one mirrors this feeling better than he does.

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