Born Adedamola Adefolahan in Ogun State, Nigeria, Fireboy DML is new on the scene but already making international waves. Preferring to categorize his music as “Afro-Life”, this budding singer / songwriter signed to Nigerian record label YBNL Nation under the wing of renowned West African hip-hop artist Olamide. His debut single “Jealous” appeared on the label’s collaborative album “YBNL Mafia Family” in 2018 and in 2020, the song won him the Listener’s Choice award as well as a Song Of The Year nomination at the Soundcity MVP Awards Festival. By this time, Fireboy had garnered the attention of the North American music industry and media critics who gave nothing but praise to the young artist’s sophomore album. Delivery Afrobeats to the world is clearly a passion, one that’s awarded him over 100 million Spotify streams alone.
Being a guitar player himself, it seemed a no brainer when he teamed up with international superstar Ed Sheeran for the remix of his 2021 hit single “Peru” via YBNL Nation and American record label Empire. Needing no introduction, this isn’t Ed’s first dabble in the world of Afrobeats / Afropop. Collaborating with Burna Boy on Stormzy’s “Own It” as well as his own song “Bibia Be Ye Ye” which features the Ghanese language of Twi. The song can be interpreted as somebody’s adventure/partying in a new or unknown place, something that Ed Sheeran himself found himself faced with many years ago when his music too entered the North American soundwaves. In addition to the official music video release, the pair released their official lyric video on January 7th.
The lyric video for “Peru” is fast paced and full of stunning imagery. With both Fireboy and Ed being international artists, it only seems fitting to showcase the many different beautiful locations mentioned in the track. With our passports in hand, the viewers get ready to go on a ride through what feels like a 3D postcard trip around the world. In the title scene, our plane takes off and we find ourselves on a hot air balloon ride above the mountains and then enjoying some time on a tropical beach. I love when the lyric “girl you wan capture my soul” shoots out from the water causing a big splash. It’s attention to detail like this that showcases the importance of using a professional lyric video production company.
We continue our journey flying through major international cities and through each scene transition, the video zooms out into a new vignette, displaying the former scene as a postcard. These transitions are crisp and really elevate the production level of this music video. In many scenes, the imagery matches the lyrics like when the artist sings “I’m in San Francisco jamming” we find ourselves standing on the Golden Gate Bridge. Also, when Ed Sheeran sings “something magic in your eyes” the video zooms out to feature two animated eyes. The left features the word “your” and the right with the word “eyes” inside, then they blink to showcase the lyrics “yeah yeah” inside. Very creative!
Featuring an analogous color scheme of yellow, orange and green, this trio are right next to each other on the color wheel resulting in a stunning match with little to no contrast. The lyrics are a major focal point of the music video, being showcased using an elegant glowing serif font. Sliding in from the left and the right, popping up word by word or being hand written on a postcard, this music video has endless surprises for typography fans out there!
If there is one thing that the North American music industry needs more of right now it’s Afrobeats paired with fun and creative lyric videos. If this isn’t a great start to 2022, I don’t know what is.
Check out the lyric video for “Peru” on Ed Sheeran’s Official YouTube channel here: