The work of Agege-born singer Shoday may exist in the lineage of street pop, but his ability to weave in influences from highlife, R&B, and soul has established him as one of Nigeria’s most interesting new voices. His debut album HYBRID arrives on the back of a spellbinding 2025 run that saw him deliver hits like including “Hey Jago,” “Gaddem,” and “Nakupenda,” which, to let him tell it, were merely the tip of his creative iceberg. “HYBRID is my combination of sounds and different ideas,” he tells Apple Music. “I want people to perceive me differently, to hear me operating across various genres and gain a unique perspective on my own sound. This is just me experimenting and proving to people that I can do a couple of things.” Between a choral-inflected invocation for divine providence on “OBT,” an uptempo ode to nightlife on “Postcode,” and a long-anticipated linkup with FOLA on “Paparazzi,” Shoday works his way through a variety of styles that embrace the vagaries of life. “This is an album for the people,” he says. “It’s for everybody. If you’re sad, you’ll find your type of song there. If you’re happy, you’ll find your song. If you’re a lover boy or lover girl, you’ll find your song there. And if it’s motivation you’re seeking, you’ll find your song there.” Below, Shoday talks us through his debut album, track by track. “Glam and Fame” “I wanted to use ‘Halle’ as an intro, but my people picked ‘Glam and Fame’ because of the storyline and how real the song is. I was skeptical about releasing the song because I said some things that I wasn’t comfortable with, but at some point I just felt like, ‘Yeah, it’s my truth.’ It’s one of the most vulnerable songs I’ve ever made in my life. It was produced by Hoodini, one half of KTIZO.” “Joy” “‘Joy’ is one of my favorite songs off the album because it doesn’t sound like a typical Shoday record. I love the projection of the song. It’s me talking about the kind of lifestyle I want, the type of life I want for myself, my girl, people around me, and what I desire. It’s me talking about luxury and stuff. I feel like everybody aspiring to be something in life will really love that song. It was produced by Semzi.” “Somebody” “Most of the songs on the album connect. It’s like a storyline that we’re trying to build up, but with different sounds and types of beats. So, ‘Somebody’ portrays the kind of life I want and how I want it to be, but it is delivered on an Afrobeats instrumental. It was produced by Niphkeys, and it’s a song that I feel like people need to listen to.” “Paparazzi” (with FOLA) “I was so sure that any song FOLA and I released would be well received because people have always wanted us to do a song together. I’m glad that when we [first] released ‘Paparazzi,’ we broke a lot of records with the song. It’s a love song, but it’s not a typical love song that praises women and stuff. I wanted this song to have the feel of being a love song and having guys relate to it. I just kind of made it a commercial song that everybody can listen to.” “Shoday Kilode” “When we made ‘Hey Jago,’ there was this tag Poco Lee added in the ad-lib. He said, ‘Shoday kilode?’ So when he said that, he added like a suffix to my name, and that sounded so good. Ever since we did ‘Hey Jago,’ I wanted a song where I’ll be mentioning my name in the hook because, at that point, I really needed to stamp my name. I feel like we did it with ‘Hey Jago,’ like everybody knows Jago more. It kind of stamped the name Jago in Nigerian Afropop culture. So, I just needed something like that for myself, and that was why I created ‘Shoday Kilode.’ It was produced by Jhay2unez.” “OBT” (feat. BhadBoi OML) “One of the ways I test how a song will perform is the comments people drop and how hungry people are for the song. So far, the engagement and the comments have been amazing. I was talking about the struggle we face in Nigeria. In some parts of the song, I was praying to God that this is the type of lifestyle I want for myself. OML did crazy stuff on that record, he delivered so well.” “Postcode” “I recorded ‘Postcode’ during my recording camp early in 2025. It’s an amazing uptempo song that will get people dancing. Everybody around me loves that song so much, and I feel like for everyone to love it, it’s a song that needs to make the album. The song was produced by Ragee.” “Figure 8” (feat. Pozer) “I recorded ‘Figure 8’ in London during my UK tour around June last year [2025]. It was after ‘Hey Jago,’ and I was on tour making music. I made ‘Figure 8’ with Pozer. That was the first time I met him, but I got to realize that he’s a big artist in the UK. The beat is uptempo, and it’s like a continuation of ‘Postcode.’” “A1” (feat. Kizz Daniel) “People actually told me to have a song with Kizz, and I was glad that we made that happen. I made the full song alone, then I just sent it to Vado, and I said, ‘I’d really love you to jump on this song.’ A few days later, he sent the verse back. Everybody trusts Vado to always deliver on any song you put him on.” “Screaming Beauty” (with Olivetheboy) “The most amazing thing about ‘Screaming Beauty’ is that it came as compensation for a song I dropped that didn’t really go well. After ‘Casablanca’ kind of raised the bar in 2024, the next song I dropped was ‘Colorado.’ I dropped another one after ‘Colorado,’ which was ‘Blessing,’ but the song did not perform as I wanted it to. Three weeks after ‘Blessing,’ I previewed ‘Screaming Beauty’ on TikTok. I woke up the next morning and I saw 30,000 videos. I don’t judge songs by streams. It doesn’t really have a lot of streams like that, but ‘Screaming Beauty’ is one of my biggest songs, impact-wise. There’s nowhere in this country where I sing ‘Screaming Beauty’ that people don’t go crazy. Olivetheboy, he’s from Ghana, and I’m a big fan of his music. I love his verse so much. ‘Screaming Beauty’ was produced by Funwon.” “Bad and Bouje” (feat. taves) “I was skeptical about this song at some point because I don’t like repetition, and there’s a line with [the phrase] ‘bad and bouje’ on ‘Screaming Beauty,’ but this sounded so good in this song, I just left it in. The craziest thing is that both songs follow each other and ‘Bad and Bouje’ is a continuation of what I was saying in ‘Screaming Beauty.’ We recorded [it] in my Lagos recording camp.” “Sober” “I’ve always wanted to work with JAE5 because he is a legend. I’ve always wanted to make something like [his] ‘Dimension’. If you listen to ‘Sober,’ you can tell that this song was inspired by ‘Dimension.’ I traveled to meet JAE5 because he lives outside London in a very remote area. But I was glad that I went there because that day gave birth to ‘Sober,’ and it is one of my all-time favorite songs.” “Halle” “‘Halle’ was produced by Pheelz. I initially wanted ‘Halle’ to be my album intro because it sounded so much like an album intro, but I just needed a song that is more deep, lyrically, so that’s why I chose ‘Glam and Fame.’ ‘Halle’ is spirit-filled and the melody is out of this world.” “Casablanca” (feat. Ayo Maff) “‘Casablanca’ was produced by Jhay2unez. At some point, I wanted to remove ‘Casablanca’ from the album, but I changed my mind because the whole story started from ‘Casablanca,’ so it’s [only] right for me to put it on the album. I recorded the song and sent it to Ayo Maff—we had been friends before we blew up. It’s one of my most streamed songs of all time.”