Considering Fans ,what they want and the current trend in the music industry are key factors in determining the kind of songs artistes will release and the genre those songs will fall .
This list takes a look at Artistes who started off a rap career as rappers but have since transitioned into singing,most of them combining rapping and singing together in their career.
1) Olamide – Olamide hardly took any singing role in his first album ,Rapsodi as he employed the services of the singers and fierced heavily on each track as a full fledged indigenous rapper.
However,going by his next three albums ( YBNL,BGEL and street OT),the rapper has since showcased his versatility by joining the singer/rapper camp in the music industry.
With Tracks like Eleda mi,badoo love,bobo ,melo melo as well as even taking the hooks of songs for other artist,one may be forced to question the genre of music Olamide belongs to, rap or pop??
2) Skales – Call it Frustration,indecision or whatever you call it ,Skales decision to switch genres surely paid off. Starting off at the EME crew as a rapper with singles like heading for the Grammy, ori mi ,monster,could not get skales the desired recognition compared to label mate ,WizKid.
Following his exit from EME,it enabled his full transition to singing as he released The massive hit shake body followed by je kan mo,lole,ijo ayo and countless collabos seeing a turn for good in Skales music career.
3) Reminisce– Reminisce started his career by recording an Hardc0re rap album at id cabasa coded tunes studio,which was never released.
Later he showed his lyrical prowess as an English rapper on 9ice’s bachelor and ever since featuring 9ice.
” Oh yee rappers ” have moved on to greater things ” signalled the rappers cross over to singing in the hit kako be chicken track.Tesojue,Sunkere,olomoge,i need a girl.agidigbo all goes to prove this new found love of alaga ibile. Like he said in one of his tracks ” punchlines o jawo mo”.
4) Eldee – Eldee the don was one of the members of the defunct trybesmen with fellow rappers.kaboom and freestyle.Soon he went ahead to form trybez records and dropped rap joints like am leaving, we made it,i go yarn and many more
The rapper however gained further prominence with the release of Songs like Bosi Gbangba, Ota mi”,One day”, Category “Wash-wash”, among others and a highly succesaful last album “Undeniable” which were all commercial and mostly pop singles.
5) Ice prince – Iceprince proved himself as a rapper on tracks like Nobody test me,oleku,Efimile remix, and other rap joints. This did not deter iceprince from showcasing his ability to sing in tracks like More,juju,Superstar,boss ft tekno as well as providing hooks for other artist like mode9 ( I see) and many more establishing him as a rapper and singer in the Nigerian music industry.
Notables:-
Dr Sid
D’prince