The Afropop star ponders romance’s capriciousness. Much as his 2020 debut album Old Romance proved, Tekno has always approached the notion of love with the sentimentality of a simpler time. On his third album, Where Did Love Go?, the singer and producer settles on romance once again, investigating love as both an emotion and a motion-inducing variable, ever difficult to delineate. Built around a delicate fusion of Tekno’s signature syrupy Afropop flow and more hyper-charged dancehall rhythms, the eight songs of Where Did Love Go? channel heart-racing exhilaration, mind-numbing blissfulness, and soul-shattering tensions. Throughout it, Tekno doesn’t so much question how love unfolds as he does map out the parameters of his participation. “Baby make I talk true?” he sings lightly on “Gently.” “E be you dey calm my mind.” This comes with an acknowledgement that hurting his lover is no different than hurting himself. On “Adaeze,” he’s singing the praises of his ideal woman and making plans for a staycation to make up for his shortcomings. Looking to the future on “Wedding Day,” Tekno evokes a fairy-tale nuptial, recounting the arduous journey of finding the right person to do a new era of life with: “What God put together, make no one put asunder.” For all of his grand romantic gestures, Tekno is still keenly aware of the utility of material wealth. “What apology cannot do, money can do,” he declares on “Avelay.” It’s an unsubtle peek into the singer’s world, a place where sex, money, and escapism are simply part of the ride.