Afropop megastar Asake made Apple Music history with his debut album, Mr. Money with the Vibe, which recorded the biggest opening day for an African album on its release in 2022. His fourth studio album, M$NEY, finds the Nigerian singer-songwriter cashing in stacks of the international acclaim he accrued in the intervening years, resulting in his most global-facing body of work yet. That isn’t to say the core elements of Asake’s sound—high-octane beats, powerful hooks, fújì influences—have been abandoned or compromised. Tracks such as “Gratitude” and “Forgiveness” marry propulsive indigenous grooves and stirring, choral refrains with soulful, soul-searching melodies; amapiano titan Kabza De Small tags in on momentum-building baller anthem “Asambe”. Even the more overt cross-genre experiments—the golden-age R&B sound of “Oba” or DJ Snake’s festival-ready drops in “WORSHIP”—retain Asake’s sonic DNA as the dominant expression, succeeding in subsuming more instantly recognisable beats (Amerie’s 2005 smash hit “1 Thing”, as sampled on Tiakola collab “BADMAN GANGSTA”) and making them his own. It’s the same carefully managed balance of authenticity and expansion Asake has bet on for his entire career. With M$NEY, he hits the jackpot once again.