By Brian Okoth
Earlier this week two of Africa's biggest musicians – Davido and Wizkid – clashed online, sending their millions of fans into overdrive as debate raged on who between the two is the bigger artiste.
First, let us recap what happened.
Wizkid's fans had taken to social media to ask him to release a new song.
In response on April 30, the musician shared a video on X social network of a man on his knees pleading for a favour, and told his fans to beg him with the same energy as the man in the video.
'Millions of dollars in endorsements'
Now, here is the catch: the man begging on his knees resembles Davido.
Davido's fans did not take the tweet kindly, and a barrage of comments on Wizkid's post caught the attention of Davido, who responded.
Davido said that he "stopped wasting" his fame on someone whose music career has ended in anticlimax.
Davido suggested that responding to Wizkid in an unprofessional manner would jeopardise his millions of US dollars in endorsements.
Fans pick sides
The musician's response further fuelled the debate, with fans picking sides, consequently pushing the names of the two artistes to the top of X trends.
But who between Davido and Wizkid is the ultimate king of Afrobeats music? There is no definitive answer.
However, let us look at the achievements of these two immensely talented artistes. And, we are going to put them head-to-head in this comparison.
Thirty-one-year-old Davido has four studio albums in his career that spans over a decade. Thirty-three-year-old Wizkid, whose career is also over a decade, on the other hand, has five studio albums.
Spotify streams
On music-streaming platform Spotify, Wizkid has the second-highest streams among musicians of African heritage, behind Moroccan-born French Montana, who has at least 9.6 billion streams.
Wizkid has more than 6.7 billion of streams. Davido, on the other hand, has at least 1.8 billion Spotify streams. The data is as of April 2024.
On video-streaming platform YouTube, Davido's songs have been watched at least 1.7 billion times, while Wizkid's songs on the platform have been watched 1.3 billion times.
Wizkid has won at least 88 career awards, including Grammy Awards, World Music Awards, MTV Europe Music Awards, four BET Awards and Billboard Music Awards.
Filled major concert halls
Davido, on the other hand, has won at least 69 career awards, including BET Awards, Channel O Music Video Awards, and MTV Africa Music Awards.
Both artistes have filled major concert halls, with Wizkid becoming the first African musician to fill the 6,000-seater Royal Albert Hall in London, the United Kingdom in October 2017.
Davido, on the other hand, headlined a concert at the 20,000-seater Capital One Arena in Washington, the United States, during the tour of his record-breaking album "Timeless" in June 2023.
Across the major social media platforms Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok, Davido has a combined following of at least 54.4 million, while Wizkid has at least 40 million.
Best of the best
On Spotify, Davido's top album is "Timeless" with 413 million streams, while Wizkid's most streamed album is "Made in Lagos: Deluxe Edition" with 805 million streams.
On Boomplay, Davido's songs have been streamed 638 million times, while Wizkid's songs have 396 million streams.
Clearly, these two artistes are the best of the best in a highly competitive field where excellence is the acceptable minimum standard.
Who between them works best for you?
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