Nigerian rap legend and YBNL Nation founder, Olamide, has been honored as one of Billboard’s 2025 Global Power Players, recognizing his influential role in the global rise of Afrobeats.

Under his leadership, YBNL Nation has flourished, with artists Asake and Fireboy DML making major waves in 2024. Asake’s Lungu Boy was named Nigeria’s biggest album of the year by TurnTable Charts, featuring the Grammy-nominated hit “MMS.” Fireboy’s album Adedamola also earned widespread acclaim.

Olamide spoke to Billboard about YBNL’s global growth, noting collaborations with international acts and efforts to bridge genres. His legacy includes launching stars like Lil Kesh, Adekunle Gold, Young Jonn, and Pheelz.

This recognition affirms Olamide’s status not just as a musical icon, but as a driving force behind Afrobeats’ global evolution.

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But not every artist can be a Kizz Daniel. For most artists, leaving their labels and moving on to be independent can be very challenging. Most times, such changes will inadvertently affect their careers for the worse.

There’s no way to tell if Fireboy is going to be one of those artists like Lil Kesh and Reekado Banks whose careers just take a downhill after they leave their record labels.

Especially for an artist like Fireboy who has enjoyed undiluted attention from Olamide for almost three years, it would be definitely different once he’s on his own.

The big question is, how is Fireboy going to survive after he leaves YBNL? Is he going to sign to another label? Very unlikely. So the only logical option is he’s going to remain independent and continue to drop his music.

Even an artist like Mayorkun who a year before was getting Artist of the Year nods appeared to have been a little affected after his DMW exit in 2021. His long-awaited sophomore studio album, “Back In Office” wasn’t really the hit people imagined it would be. And there’s a very good chance that only happened because he wasn’t with the label anymore.

Fireboy has experience, of course. He has been in YBNL for four years and he has worked on three different albums, plus his work on the YBNL Mafia Mixtape. So yeah, he knows what to do with the music? But who’s to say he knows how to do his A&R work and promote himself?

I think Fireboy should just renew his deal with YBNL for now and see how it goes for the next four years. He’s still young and he still has potential for great things. All that can go away in a minute should he decide to leave YBNL at a point like this in his career.

Well, what do y’all think?

Do You Think That If Fireboy Leaves YBNL, It Will Affect His Career?

Let’s hear from you.
Drop a comment.

The post DO YOU AGREE? If Fireboy Leaves YBNL, It Will Affect His Career appeared first on PURE ENTERTAINMENT.

The rapper made this known in a tweet writing,

“Next Album = #Unruly 95% ready. Release date = I don’t know. Taking my time to make it the best ever… probably my last album… though I’ll drop singles once in a blue moon when I feel like it… it’s been a mad *BLEEP* run !!! giving albums back to back.”

Just so you know, since Olamide’s emergence into the Nigerian music industry in 2011, he has released back to back chart-topping albums, which includes, ‘Rapsodi’ that same year, ‘YBNL’ in 2012, ‘Baddest Guy Ever Liveth’ in 2013, ‘Street OT’ in 2014, ‘Eyan Mayweather’ in 2015, ‘The Glory’ in 2016, ‘Lagos Nawa’ in 2017, ‘Carpe Diem’ in 2020, and ‘UY Scuti’ in 2021.

Asides from other collaborative projects Olamide has to his credit, he is also recognized for putting on several musical acts under his record label, YBNL Nation.

See video below!

The post Olamide Hints At Retiring From Music | See What He Said appeared first on PURE ENTERTAINMENT.