Adekunle Gold Signs With Def Jam Recordings

Billboard reports that Nigerian Afropop singer Adekunle Gold has signed with Def Jam Recordings.

Def Jam CEO/chairman Tunji Balogun in a statement to Billboard said:

“I’ve been following Adekunle Gold since I first heard his record ‘Sade’ in 2016. Over the years, everything in AG’s world has elevated — his songwriting has refined, the scope of his artistry has widened, his vocals have strengthened, his approach to fashion is more distinct, and his showmanship and performance ability have grown exponentially,”. “He’s stepped into stardom on his own terms and is completely comfortable being his true self.”

Balogun added, “When I started at Def Jam, I knew I wanted to bring the label into the Afrobeats space tastefully, with the right artists and partnership. Adekunle felt like the perfect fit – he’d already done so much work on his own to build a base, but I knew that we could scale his audience to an even bigger level if we combined our energies and worked together.”

As Adekunle Gold puts it, his signing marks a “full circle moment” after Balogun tried signing him years ago, prior to the executive’s 2022 arrival at Def Jam. The “5 Star” singer said that because he and Balogun share Nigerian roots, “he understands it, so signing to Tunji makes sense. He’s like my studio buddy that just comes everywhere I go. The day he doesn’t have time to be there, I know he must’ve been like stupidly busy. He’s great.”

In regards to signing with Def Jam, Gold said, “The track record is there. The history is there. They break artists, and they have niche, unique artists like me, so I think it’s the right move for me. All of the things that I’ve done for myself already, they know already and that’s why they’re on board.”

Adekunle Gold says Balogun was in Lagos, Nigeria when he and Zinoleesky wrote and recorded “Party No Dey Stop,” Gold’s debut single for Def Jam. “When we started to make the music, it was so easy for me to go in and just attack the song. I wrote my verse, I wrote the chorus, and it was a rap. I knew from then that this song was a jam,” Adekunle Gold explains.

The song arrives ahead of the release of Gold’s fifth studio album, which will be unveiled in June. As part of the project, he’ll embark on a four-month world tour starting in North America in September and running through the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and the Caribbean.

He gained fame in 2015 with the single “Sade,” a highlife love song that samples one Direction’s “Story of My Life.” “Sade” won best alternative song at the 2015 edition of The Headies, a Nigerian music awards show. In 2017, Gold released his debut studio album, Gold, on Olamide’s YBNL Nation label. The album peaked at No. 7 on the World Albums chart Billboard.

Check out his newly released single “Party No Dey Stop” ahead of his upcoming fifth studio album.