Afrobeats star Adekunle Gold has opened up about why he kept the featured artists on his album FUJI a secret.
In a recent conversation with Cool FM, posted on Instagram on Friday, he explained that his focus was on ensuring fans experienced the music itself, rather than being distracted by the names of guest artists.
“The only thing that mattered was music, the song, not the optics of it, not who’s on it,” Adekunle said, stressing that the quality of the music was his main priority.
Advertisement
READ MORE: Omah Lay Laments Decline In Nigerian Music Industry, Calls It Boring
He said hiding the features was meant to give listeners a complete and immersive experience, encouraging them to enjoy the album from beginning to end without skipping tracks.
Adekunle noted that today’s audiences often pay more attention to featured artists than the music itself.
“Because I feel like we’re so spoiled now that we just don’t even understand how to enjoy music anymore. When I made my first album, I had only one feature. And was it one of my greatest works? Yes. So I’m like, you know, I need to go back to simpler times when what matters to me is the music, not okay, who’s on it? Yeah, I need you to enjoy the music,” he said.
He added, “Whoever voice you hear on it and all of that, yeah, that’s fine. I’ll reveal it later to you. But first, before fixating on, ‘Oh, I need to listen to this one because somebody’s on it,’ yeah, enjoy the journey. Yeah, I crafted this album intentionally. That’s why I said, listen to it from top to bottom. Because that’s the only way normal people should listen to music. Why would you want to skip just because there’s a feature there and then it makes no sense. I mean, because I make music and I am very intentional about how I make my music as well. So I hid the feature intentionally because I want you to enjoy the music or do all the guesswork you want to do and all of that, just enjoy the music. And then you can find out.”
