The Singles Jukebox

And here’s someone else who’s been busy in 2018:

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: A good look — hazy synth chords and a rollicking session bass — for Wizkid, which replaces the clave for a soca cadence and the sun-kissed melodies for a midnight spin. There’s still some energy missing, but this is intended to sell a mood. And it does. 
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: Gentle, slipping pianos skip around circular percussion as bass strops pop up around Wizkid’s soft, inviting coo and bongos and snares sharply ripple at the edge of the waves, along with a weeping saxophone somewhere in the ocean.(But still, Tiwa should have actually been on this song.)
[9]

Micha Cavaseno: Gotta say, Blaq Jerzee’s soundscape with all its attempts to evoke as much stylistic ground with such little more than its elegant leydrift alone feels like an 8 out of 10. Sadly, that much is paired to Wizkid’s rambling vocal performance that’s under the mistaken impression it’s the star of the record, which drags us down. One day I hope the new wave of African music, with its vague ancestral connections to dancehall, learns the tradition of the ‘version’ and frees us from the land of lazy “Official” performances.
[4]

Alfred Soto: A meandering vocal makes “Fever” a tedious listen. It says something about the curate’s-egg nature of the track that I can’t figure out if the problem is the melody. Lovely backing track.
[5]

Will Adams: The post-chorus breaks are gorgeous: a sax croons from far away while Wizkid doot-doo’s alongside a muted synth bell. But it’s the only part of “Fever” that sticks, and the rest leaves worryingly little impression.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Wizkid moves fast, nearly at Ariana Grande speed, in fact. He dropped the video for this a few weeks ago and has already put out another song. Such is the luxury, or perhaps the burden, of being the biggest damn thing in your market. But he’s also the worst damn thing on his own song on this occasion. His yelpy melody mars a cruisy sunset/sunrise of a track for the most part, and when he’s not yelping he’s just repeating “Starboy dey for you” and that’s not particularly exciting either. On the plus side, I love the pants he’s wearing in the video, so there’s that.
[3]